Jots and Tittles

Yesterday, I met Martin.

Allow me to paraphrase a friend of mine, who has a masters degree from a respected seminary: “God's got your back.” You see, of all the issues disturbing the deep waters of my life right now, one seemingly minor detail weighing heavily on my mind has been boxes. Cardboard boxes. For weeks, I have been dreading finding containers into which I can load my overstuffed life. So I asked the advice of a native Los Angelina and ended up at a miniature warehouse store only blocks from my residence.

There, I met Martin. Although I am an unusually articulate, even verbose, person, when I encountered Martin near the loading dock, all I could force myself to say was 'boxes, I need boxes.' He was won over immediately. Unfortunately, a co-worker and he had just finished crushing a host of them, and though we scoured the aisles, I walked out the door with only one small box. But he told me to return 15 minutes before closing, which I did. By that time, he had stockpiled a number of boxes of various sizes in the back, which I loaded into a shopping cart and whisked out to my Xterra. I then promptly locked them, along with my keys, inside.

Thankfully, I had, only weeks ago, taken my one spare key from my man-bag and left it by the door. Melanie, bless her soul, was kind enough to change into real pants well after pajama time had arrived and bring the key to me. As I stood inside the store (LA has recently become quite cold!) awaiting her arrival in the hot-to-trot minivanSUVstationwagonthing, an employee asked if he could help me. I replied that unless he had a cure for stupidity, he couldn't.

I returned tonight to collect more boxes courtesy of Martin, who not only carried them out to my Xterra but told me about his other job, just down the road, where they also have an overabundance of boxes. I'll most likely meet him there on Friday.

Not only did someone recommend I visit a store I've never shopped, but the one person I ask for help has the box hookup of the decade!

God's got my back. Even the small stuff.