The Wheelbarrow Adventure

Prayer Request: That Rett and the kids would feel better (attack of the spring colds/ allergies), and that God would continue to develop His Spiritual Fruits and Gifts in our family (reminder from recent Bible Study).

Missions Update: We finally turned in our waivers, emergency contact info, etc., after finally resolving some misunderstandings by re-reading the forms… It is amazing how difficult it can be to read instructions when you have a lot of other things going on! Thankfully we had some time to look over everything again, and this time it all seemed very clear and simple. (I feel a bit silly but very relieved to have one more step done.) This is a good moment to be thankful for all the behind-the-scenes work that supports the ministries we appreciate. All the prep-work and paperwork that goes into a ministry may not seem very exciting, but if it is done well it can make the work of evangelists and teachers much easier in the long run. 🙂

Kid’s Space: My mom has been visiting this week, and the kids have loved getting to spend some time with her! The weather has been nice the last few days too so they were able to spend a lot of time running around at the park which is always a good thing!

The Wheelbarrow Adventure

At home, we were excited to finish up some of our outdoor projects, so Rett and I decided that it would be useful to get a wheelbarrow for moving large amounts of dirt. About a week ago we went out to one of our local hardware stores and found one we liked, but the kit was missing the axel, so we went to another store, where we were happy to find a wheelbarrow we liked, that was in stock. Unfortunately, when we grabbed slips to buy the pieces of the wheelbarrow, the kids wanted to grab some too, so the slips got mixed up and we ended up with two slips for handles, and no-slip for the wheelbarrow hardware. We did not discover our mistake until we had already paid, so we tried to return and exchange the slips before picking up the items from the back of the store. This made a few extra hoops for the customer service person to jump through, but she was very patient and considerate through the whole process, and we were able to get handles, hardware, and the bin of the wheelbarrow into the back of our car and go home. Rett later discovered that we had picked up handles for a different wheelbarrow! The pre-drilled holes were in the wrong spots, and we didn’t want to weaken the handles by drilling more holes, so Rett took it upon himself to go back to the store and exchange handles.

Upon arriving back at the store (handles in hand), Rett approached customer service, explained the situation, and asked to exchange the handles. The clerk was curious how he had been given the wrong handles, but worked with him as best she could to confirm that they were in stock, and then exchange them. This all appeared to be going smoothly until they discovered that the correct handles were not, in fact, in stock. After puzzling over the situation for a bit longer the clerk suggested that perhaps Rett could get handles that didn’t have pre-drilled holes, and add the holes himself (a possibility, but not necessarily ideal). They decided to look online, to possibly order the correct handles but discovered that the online site didn’t list traditional wheelbarrows (wagons and tractor-trailers were an option), at which point the clerk conceded that she couldn’t do much more to help.

Rett decided to walk around the store one more time before deciding on the non-pre-drilled handles, and was happy to discover that the store had the same model wheelbarrow pre-assembled, and on sale! He didn’t have all the wheelbarrow parts with him in order to exchange them for the pre-assembled wheelbarrow, so he would have to return home and come back. (He also had the kids and my mom with him, so he wouldn’t have been able to fit a pre-assembled wheelbarrow in the car, with everyone else anyway.)

Rett, the kids, and my mom pulled into the driveway, just after I had gotten home from work, and we all decided to turn around and go straight back to the store so we could get this all figured out as quickly as possible. My mom, the kids, and I ended up going to get Ryan some swim trunks, while Rett took care of the wheelbarrow. All was going smoothly in exchanging the parts of the wheelbarrow for a pre-assembled wheelbarrow until it became unclear if he needed slips for each part of the wheelbarrow or one slip for the pre-assembled wheelbarrow. The clerk at customer service hadn’t encountered this problem before, so she referred Rett to sales person who worked on the floor. The salesperson didn’t know either so he called a manager to come help. The manager just told Rett to get the three tickets and let the employees in the back know that he wanted a pre-assembled wheelbarrow. After that point, everything went smoothly: Rett paid for the new tickets and picked up a fully assembled wheelbarrow as if nothing had happened. We all lived happily ever after with our new landscaping tool.

The End.

The New Wheelbarrow