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As you know, we are in a major remodel of the house — and we now have two weeks left to finish EVERYTHING before the baby gets here! Well on Monday our time crunch got even crunchier. Lindsay was picking up paint while I was filling in the joints of a newly put up wall — and then she called me crying.
“I spilled paint all over the back seat…”
To add insult to injury, she almost took our beater car (our Land Rover that we guff up a ton between the two dogs) — but instead took the car we try to keep nice. If it was the Rover, I don’t think she would have even called me — she would have just gooped the paint back in the can and got another can of paint :P Add the fact that she’s almost full term pregnant and it was a flash of an emotional mini-breakdown.
So I headed down there with a ton of towels to help clean it up while she went back inside to tell Home Depot what happened. I usually hate this kind of thing as so many companies make you be a jerk in order to do the right thing (pay for mistakes). You have to complain and complain in order to get something done, you know? I’m not a fan of that, so I usually just figure I’ll eat whatever the problem is.
When I got there, the supervisor was out there, they brought out a wet vac, and started trying to clean it. The supervisor, Deanne, immediately apologized and stated that they would pay for whatever was needed that we couldn’t clean. We told them no need to apologize as if you deal with tons of paint cans every day, one or two are bound to slip through without being sealed every so often. I think they were surprised as we were actually smiling the whole time — and the Home Depot people were all so kind throughout the entire process.
The key was to keep everything into perspective. Are we on a time crunch? Yep. Would being angry help? Nope. Was it an accident? You bet. Was it an accident I could just as easily do? Oh yeah. All of these things combined mean that these are just normal parts of life — and letting these things push you to be rude to people is what can make the world suck at times. However, smiling through the process, understanding that it’s an honest, reasonable accident, and just being nice (and not making people feel bad for an honest mistake) is a way that we can make the world a brighter place, just as easily.
That being said, I have to remind myself to act/react this way all the time. And I am totally sure there are many that times I don’t. But it’s good to remind ourselves to do so, don’t you think? :)
Bobby
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by Bobby Earle
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