Where was I? Oh yeah, still at Wal-mart...

As I told this story to Superman I felt stupider and stupider.

This is why:

I told the kid, "Well I am actually headed down that way, I could give you all a ride."

To which he responded, "Well, we really don't want to leave the car behind.  It's my grandma's and we really need to get it back to her."

So first he asks if I can help them out by giving them a ride, then when I offer it, he turns it down.

Hmmmmm....

Well I could certainly understand not wanting to leave the car more than 30 miles away from home.

So I made another suggestion.

"Well why don't you get your sister and her kids and I will give them a ride, while you and your brother sort things out with your car."

He hesitates, "Well, we really want to stay together."

He was the one who asked for a ride in the first place, what is this kids deal?

He continues, "We really just need gas, we've found a guy who is willing to take us to a gas station, but we only have sixty five cents."

Translation:

"What we really need is your money."

I'm suspicious now, "Soooooo, why don't you go and get your sister and her two little ones, I will give them a ride so they don't have to wait it being so late and all.  

I could maybe give you five dollars for gas."

Again he declines my help, asking only for money.

Yeah, money, big surprise.

I tell him I am not just going to hand money over to him.

I tell him he has got to show me his people and prove that what he is saying is true.

No answer, he starts to walk away thanking me anyway.

Who is the idiot?

Obviously I am.

All I could think though was, 

but what if he ISN'T lying.

What if there really are some poor tired stranded kids wanting to get home, eat, and go to bed?

Here are the clues that he was in fact not helpless at all:

1-Would somebody really have pulled several miles off the freeway, to go to Wal-mart, thirty miles away from home that late at night, with two very small children?  

2-Would they really have been so dumb as to run out of gas on a road trip home.  

3-Don't people normally monitor their gas to be sure they can make their trip.  

4-If they were about to run out of gas wouldn't they have pulled off the freeway and into a gas station instead of the nearest Wal-mart.  

5-If they really didn't have any money for gas, what the heck were they doing at Wal-mart anyway?
6- Obviously asking for a ride to a city located more than 30 miles south was bound to get refusal.
7-What are the chances someone would actually be headed that way?
8-Who in the heck shops at a Wal-mart that far from home?

I should have thought a bit harder about his story before believing it.

Here is what I should have done:

Questionable looking young man approches me, "Excuse me maam.....we need help...."

Me, "Okay well, I'll tell you where you can get it.  Go to the nearest pay phone, look up the local police station, call the number listed there.  Tell an officer your problem, they are there to serve, so let them.  Now run along, good luck, have a nice night."

Then I should have hauled ass into my truck, looked up the local police stations number myself, and then called to let them know what this kid, with this car, with this license plate number, was doing.  

And perhaps saved someone else a few dollars or some wasted time.

The story doesn't end there.

Because I had to know if he really was lying or not.

I was just too darned worried.

I loaded up my truck, watching where this kid went out of the corner of my eye.

I saw him walk toward the entrance to the store.

I saw him meet up with two other guys.

I lost track of them while I got into my truck.

I waited, not long though.

The kid came back to his car, opened the door and then went back into the store.

Alone.

I drove around the lot.

I saw him with the two guys again.

They knew I was watching.

I pulled out of the lot drove around a restaurant and watched as these three guys climbed into their car, started it, and drove away.

Need I say more.....

No, I've never been homeless and I shop at Ikea and Wal-mart...

....Does that make me a jerk or something?

***

So here is my story:

This was last week.

Superman and I have finally finished building our basement.

With all the extra space we were needing some items to aid with organization.

So I went to Ikea.

Now the closest Ikea located to our home, located in city "A", is roughly 60 miles away.

I'll call the city it is located in city "B".

I made the drive.

Naturally I spent several hours walking around and shopping in Ikea.

Thus it was late by the time I purchased my items and left.

Before I went to Ikea I had dropped my kids off at my Mom's house.

She lives in city "C".

City "C", is about 30 miles from my house in city "A".

When I dropped my kids off I was a little worried that Sissy would have a hard night as she had molars coming in.  So I decided that I ought to stop at Wal-mart on my way home to get some Tylenol in case Sissy needed it.

So driving back from Ikea I got off the freeway in city "C", to go to their local Wal-mart.

Incidentally, the Wal-mart is not located right off of the freeway.

In fact it is several twist, turns, and miles from the freeway.

It wasn't out of my way as this was the city my Mom lives in.

So I got to Wal-mart, and proceeded to shop.

Completely forgetting about the Tylenol and instead buying Thanksgiving dinner items I was going to be needing that week.

With all my items piled high in my cart I headed out to my truck.

It was already weighted down with Ikea stuff, it was going to be quite a task to load up the groceries I had, but I went ahead with it.

As I went about my business I was approached from behind.

"Excuse me maam?"

I turned around to see a young man standing about twenty feet behind me.

He looked to be about nineteen, with only a hoodie jacket on.

Hood pulled up.

His look was very reminiscent of my nineteen year old brother.

I listened to the kid as he forlornly explained the helpless state he had found himself in.

"Hey I was wondering if you might be headed to city "D"?

 (a city located a few miles south of where I was heading)

I was confused and asked him, "Huh?"

"Well," he said giving me puppy dog eyes.

"My brother, sister, her kids and I are trying to get home.  We are just on our way home from city "E" 

(a long ways away from city "C") 

and we've run out of gas.  We are just trying to get home.  We are just hoping to find a ride with someone heading that way."

I asked him where his sister and brother were.

He told me they were in the store keeping the little kids warm and that he felt so stupid going around asking for help but that they didn't have any other choice.

I asked him if they had a phone, he said they had a cell phone and had been trying to get ahold of family.

I asked him how old the little kids were, he said 3 and 1.

He had hold of my heart strings.

But still, I said to him, well how do I know that I can believe you?

You've got a questionable appearance and all.

Yes I really told him that, lol!

He just told me he knew how he looked and then reiterated how stupid he felt, 

but that they really needed help.

Now being me, being a woman all I could think about was that poor mom and her poor little baby kids.

It was freezing outside, and it was 10PM.

I took pity.

***

Stay tuned.

I'll finish this story tomorrow ;D

We are not homeless.....but boy do I have a story to tell...

Superman and I, we have different beliefs.

I think mostly because:

A: I am a Woman 

B: He is not.

I tend to get more emotionally involved than he does.

***

Today I want to talk a little bit about being homeless or helpless.

This time of year has a tendency to bring out all sorts of  questionable "Creeps" and "Weirdos".

Notice the quotations there, keep them in mind.

Anyway.  

You can't go anywhere without seeing some poor soul standing in the bitter cold with a sign that says something to the effect of:

-Give me your hard earned money because I am standing out here giving you puppy dog eyes-

Now first it must be said that I want to help EVERYBODY!!!!

No exaggeration.

I want to help these people, I would give them the coat off my back and the sandwich out of my hand.  But I hesitate to give money.  Money that may be spent in a manner that I don't see fit.  And yes I think I do get a say in how it is spent if it is MY (OR SUPERMANS) HARD EARNED MONEY!!!!!

But still I want to help and if I have an idea of where that money is going to be going:

Online everywhere you see that half the world needs a donation to pay for whatever tribulation they are facing (usually medical).  I have no problem with that and would like to donate to them all, but then I'd be the one asking for handouts wouldn't I.

Superman does not like me to give out money.

He does not like it when I donate to anything.

We pay our tithing (10% of all the money we bring in goes straight to the church of Jesus Christ of LDS), and not just that, we always pay extra.

Superman feels like that is doing our part, as far as cash and money goes.

(If you don't know, the "mormons" LDS are very charitable)

And when I am really thinking clearly about it, I agree, until I see those puppy dog eyes, 

or hear that heart breaking 

"We ran out of gas and we have no money and we just want to get home" 

sob story.

Then I have to refrain from emptying my wallet for a stranger.

I don't think this is heartless, I don't think I am being selfish.

Not in the slightest.

And I'll tell you why....

Tomorrow...

Boy have I got a story to tell.

A story that Superman HATES!!!

And that scares him to death!!!

And that I never should have told him, but did because I thought it was funny, lol!

So stay tuned for tomorrows story :D

How do we come up with these things? The Phoenix Bird by Hans Christian Anderson

So I was on the internet one day I don't remember what I was doing but I came across a site that had a million short stories by Hans Christian Anderson. I thought it was interesting as I really had no idea that he had written so many of these stories. I knew he had written some like, the little mermaid, but these were stories I had never herd of before.

One of the stories really stood out to me, and I want to share it with you:

The Phoenix bird

by

Hans Christian Anderson

Beneath the tree of knowledge in the garden of paradise stood a rosebush. And here, in the first rose, a bird was born. Her plumage was beautiful, her song glorious, and her flight was like the flashing of light. But when Eve plucked the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and she and Adam were driven from paradise, a spark fell from the flaming sword of the angel into the nest of the bird and set it afire. The bird perished in the flames, but from the red egg in the nest there flew a new bird, the only one of its kind, the one solitary phoenix bird. The legend tells us how she lives in Arabia and how every century she burns herself to death in her nest, but each time a new phoenix, the only one in the world, flies out from the red egg.

The bird darts about as swift as light, beautiful in color, glorious in song. When a mother sits beside her infant's cradle, she settles on the pillow and forms a glory with her wings about the head of the child. She flies through the room of contentment and brings sunshine into it, and she makes the violets on the humble cupboard smell sweet.

But the phoenix is not a bird of Arabia alone. In the glimmer of the northern lights she flies over the plains of Lapland and hops amid the yellow flowers in the short Greenland summer. Deep beneath the copper mountains of Falun, and in England's coal mines, she flies in the form of a powdered moth over the hymnbook resting in the hands of the pious miner. She floats down the sacred waters of the Ganges on a lotus leaf, and the eye of the Hindu maid brightens when she beholds her.

Phoenix bird! Don't you know her? The bird of paradise, the holy swan of song? She sat on the car of Thespis, like a chattering raven, flapping her black gutter-stained wings; the swan's red, sounding beak swept over the singing harp of Iceland; she sat on Shakespeare's shoulder, disguised as Odin's raven, and whispered, "Immortality!" into his ear; and at the minstrels' feast she fluttered through the halls of the Wartburg.

Phoenix bird! Don't you know her? She sang the Marseillaise to you, and you kissed the feather that fell from her wing; she came in the glory of paradise, and perhaps you turned away from her toward the sparrow that sat with gold tinsel on its wings.

The bird of paradise-renewed each century-born in flame, dying in flame! Your portrait in a frame of gold hangs in the halls of the rich, but you yourself often fly around lonely and misunderstood-a myth only:

"The phoenix bird of Arabia."

When you were born in the garden of paradise, in its first rose, beneath the tree of knowledge, our Lord kissed you and gave you your true name-poetry!

The End

*the original version sites the Phoenix bird as a he. Please note that I have changed the story to show the Phoenix bird as a she.