The Church Ladies

On a recent trip to the supermarket I noticed a bake sale going on just inside the store with smiling church ladies behind the table of packaged cookies and treats.  I decided I would make a contribution on my way out.

So later I stopped by the table and explained that I couldn't eat the sweets but would like to make a donation of a couple dollars, which was the price on most of the little packages of cookies they had on the table. They were very grateful and told me how they were renovating an old church to be their new church home and the bake sale would benefit the building fund.  I wished them good luck and dug into my wallet.  I was embarrassed to find I didn't have any one dollar bills.  Only a twenty in fact.  I apologetically explained my situation and one of the ladies assured me that was no problem. The store had been kind enough to supply them all the change they needed.  So I handed her the twenty.  She went into her change bag and asked again how much I wanted to give. I said "two dollars", so she rooted around in there and handed me back a ten and a bunch of ones.  I smiled and once again wished them well. 

When I got home  and re-organized my wallet, I was horrified to find that she had given me back a ten and ten ones.  The whole twenty dollars!  Thinking back on it, I thought she had a funny look on her face when I stuffed the money in my wallet and waved good-bye.  She must have thought the proper thing to do would be to hand me back the twenty in the appropriate denominations and leave it to me to hand her back the two dollars.  I just thought she would give me back eighteen dollars.  I felt terrible, and vowed to make it right if I got the chance.

The next day I went back to the store but the church ladies were not there.  Oh well. Then a couple weeks later I went to the same store and once again, there was the bake sale and smiling church ladies manning the table!  Here was my chance.  I didn't see any reason to go into a big explanation of  the previous debacle, so I just once again explained that I couldn't eat the sweets but would like to make a donation.  This time I gave them five dollars, just for good measure. I was redeemed! 

They were so very pleased and smiled brightly as one of them said, 'The Shiloh Church thanks you so much!" 

I said "You're so welcome" even as it dawned on me, this wasn't the same church as before.

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