Not a quitter

With my son's permission, I bring you this story....

Yesterday was the last day of a youth retreat at PMBC. My wife stayed behind at camp with our two youngest children while I took Hannah and Jay, our oldest two, to church with me.

After church, I took them to Friday's for lunch. It was nice. We really had a great time. Before we left, I asked each of them if they had to use the bathroom. Both said "no." I asked again just to make sure and they answered the same, so we left.

We live about 20 minutes from Friday's. About 5 minutes into our drive, Jay looked at me and said, "Dad, I really need to go."

Jay, I just asked you five minutes ago and you said you didn't.

I know, but now I really do.

Can you hold it until we get home?

I think so.

With that confirmation, we drove for a minute or two. I realized that Jay was squirming in pain in his seat and was squinting his eyes as if in deep concentration.

Jay, are you sure you can make it?

I don't think I'm going to make it Dad.

Uh, oh. OK pal, hold it in as long as you can while I look for a
place to stop.

Sometimes Mommy lets me go in the grass on the side of the road.

Jay, it's broad daylight and there's too much traffic. Can you make it to Burger King?

I think so.

At this point, Jay started talking to himself, saying.....

I'm not a quitter. I'm not going to give up. I'm going to make
it to Burger King. Stanges never quit. I'm not giving up.

That's the spirit Jay. Just hold it a little longer, we're almost
there.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Burger King was too far away and he wouldn't last that long. At the last second, I turned into Walgreen's and got the kids out of the truck. We ran inside and found the bathroom, only to discover that you needed to press a numerical code into the handle for it to open.

Frustrated, we ran to the pharmacy. The pharmacist said, "I'll be with you in a moment," as she talked on the phone. I interrupted, "Mam, my son needs to use your bathroom and apparently we need a code to open the door." She said, "OK, I'll send someone over to punch it in."

We ran back to the bathroom and waited for a short moment. Jay was crossing his legs at this point in serious pain. Finally, someone showed up at the restroom and punched the code in. I looked over her shoulder to see what it was.

"1-2-3-4-5"

You've got to be kidding me.

Well, we made it in time and our bathroom crisis was averted.

And for the record, if there be an doubters out there,....know this.....Stanges never quit.