I mentioned before the friend who mailed back all my books, and how there was no closure. If you recall, I also mentioned that she thought her husband walked on water.
My friend and I liked “Sports Night.” When it was released on DVD, I let out a squeal of joy, put it on my wishlist at Amazon, and called her on the spot. Only to have her tell me that her husband wouldn’t let her get it.
???
I asked her to repeat that. She pointed out to me that I should remember the VHS/Betamax wars of the 1980s, and she told me that her husband didn’t want to get caught in another one of those, so he was waiting for a resolution to the competing DVD formats before he allowed her to buy a DVD player.
And my goodness, did she ever sound smug about it. You see, he was smart! He was not going along on the bandwagon, but rather protecting her from outmoded data formats.
You have to believe me, I tried to explain to her that this wasn’t the case. That the competing DVD formats only applied to recording DVDs, not playing them. My proof? “There’s only one section in Suncoast. If there were two kinds of DVDs, they’d have two sections. The DVDs would be marked with the format. But they’re not. Any DVD can play in any DVD player.”
This was in 2001. DVDs were hardly new at that point. And her husband worked in IT. There’s no way he really thought that was true. She wouldn’t hear of the possibility of him being wrong.
This kind of situation happened often enough that there was some friction, as I consistently failed to believe the sun shone out of her husband’s armpit.
He had founded a startup company. When he looked into advertising, I hooked him up with a friend of mine who sold radio ads on one of the most popular stations in the state. I knew she’d take good care of him. When I spoke to her later, she laughed at me: She’d mocked up some radio ads for him, but no. He wanted to design his own radio ad. Because I guess he knew more about radio ads than the radio station. He never did get back to her with a better version.
His company was struggling (gee, I wonder why) when he had a family emergency that required him to leave town for a while. In all, he spent one month away from Angeltown tending to other issues.
I spoke to my friend, his wife, and I said something about how his company must be foundering without him at the helm.
She said, “No! Since he’s been gone, they’re doing much better!”
I muttered, “Well, that should tell you something.”
Mouth out-paced brain. Dumb, dumb, dumb. It was one of those moments I wished I could stop the clock, whack myself in the head with a gravel-filled-sock, and then turn back time by about five seconds.
She exclaimed, “It does! God’s really taking care of things!”
“He certainly is,” I said, knowing that God had just taken care of one more thing as He pulled my bacon out of the fire.
Once again, repeat along with your weblog mistress: “God looks out for fools, drunks, the United States of America, and me.” And thank goodness for that, or I’d have gotten my books mailed back to me six years sooner.
God looks out for fools, drunks, CANADA, and Philangelus and me.
Sounds to me like she’s decluttering. Let’s hope the first thing she decluttered was the unrealistic view of the husband. (Then again, maybe this view is less painful for her.)
You know, the night I realized God loved ME (not the general “God loves everyone” I had believed up until I was 21, He loves specific-me, personally) was when I read somewhere in 1st Collossians that He calls the crazy, the fools, or something like that. Then it was plain to me: He loved ME like I was unique and precious. I was overwhelmed with happiness like I never had felt.
I am not joking. I spent around half an hour incapable of doing anything other than walking around my bedroom, huge smile in my face, whispering: “thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You”.
So, there you have it, God looks out for fools 🙂
I have another fool-like experience, one related to Mary.