Continued......

As I mentioned last time, when lunch time rolled around, I discovered that my lunchbox was no where to be found and had in fact been left on the bus with Rudy. I wasn't really sure what to do and should have probably told Mrs. Durso, my kindergarten teacher. But that would have been too simple.

I did, however, mention my dilemma to one of the students in class. I don't remember the boy's name, but I do recall that he wasn't "all there." One of those kids who seem to do things their own way and have little understanding of the social etiquette that the rest of the world chooses to live by. Still, he was genuinely concerned that I didn't have anything to eat and decided to fix that.

He disappeared for a few minutes into the scuffle of children getting their lunches unpacked, and returned with a whole bunch of food for me.

"Wow, where did you get all this?," I asked.

"It's from right over there," he replied.

"Is it OK for me to eat all this stuff?"

"Ya, go for it. It's your lunch."

So, under the seemingly sound advice of my friend, I began eating. He hooked me up with so much food...it was crazy. Then I discovered where it all came from. Some students brought a bag lunch. Others had a lunch that was supplied by the school. My friend took it upon himself to pilfer the school supplied lunches and took whatever looked good to him, for me. The rest of the kids started looking around for the missing portions of their meal and unfortunately for us all, I was already eating it.

Obviously Mrs. Durso wasn't very happy that this had happened. I could have offered it back, but I'm not sure it would have tasted as good a second time down.

The next day, Rudy gave me my lunchbox when I stepped on to the bus. I was glad to get it back and brought it with me, excited that I now had two lunches to eat, yesterday's and today's. As lunch time rolled around, I opened yesterday's lunch first. The granola bar looked good. The sandwich smelled strange and my thermos of milk (why did my Mom send me to school with one of those) had turned. This was my first experience with spoiled food and thankfully, my astute teacher prevented me from eating it.

In summary, this experience taught me two things. (1) Nothing ruins granola and (2) Make friends with food thieves.

True stories from childhood - Vol. 5, "The Bus"

Passenger safety wasn't much of a concern when I was a child. We never wore seat belts. We always played games and made faces at other drivers while in the back of the station wagon. I even remember, as a high school student, convincing my father to let me ride in the trunk of his Lincoln Towncar while coming back from a restaurant.

My oldest child, Hannah, is a kindergarten student right now. When I was in kindergarten, I rode the bus to school. My busdriver's name was Rudy. He was an older man who seemed to have a grandfather's soul. All the kids loved him.

To this day, school busses don't have seatbelts. As if that wasn't dangerous enough, Rudy found a way to make our travel even more treacherous (which made us love him even more).

To the left of the busdriver's seat, just under his window, was a heating vent that came out about 8 inches from the wall of the bus. At the request of the children, Rudy let us take turns sitting on that vent on our way to school. It was a perch of prestige. Every kindergarten student waited in eager anticipation of their turn to sit on that vent in the front of the bus.

Rudy would tell us one day ahead of time when it was our turn. I was excited when my turn came. When Rudy stopped at my house to pick me up, I ran on to the bus. He picked me up and placed me on that vent and away we went. What a great ride. My head was in the clouds. Awesome way to start the day.

I got off the bus feeling like a hero that day and went to Mrs. Durso's class feeling like nothing could go wrong. That was until lunch time, when it dawned on me......"I left my lunch box on the bus with Rudy!"

To be continued..........

Cookie Monster

As I stated in my previous post, my son Daniel is my favorite person to speak to regarding all topics related to Cookie Monster. Daniel is two and has an appetite that can quickly match his hero. Because he has found the words "Cookie Monster" a little tricky for his toddler tongue to pronounce, he simply refers to him as "Um" (referencing the sound Cookie Monster makes as he devours baked goods).

Yesterday, my wife made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the kids. I still like PB&J and was craving a bite. I walked over to Daniel and this is how it went:

Me: Daniel, can Daddy have a bite of your sandwich?

Daniel: No

Me: Come on, Daddy's hungry. Don't you want to share with Daddy?

Daniel: No

Me thinking: I bet if I pretend I'm Cookie Monster he'll give me a bite.

Me speaking with Um's voice: Daniel, me want bite of yummy sandwich. Can Cookie Monster bite Daniel's sandwich?

Daniel: Yes! (excited) Mommy, it's Um! (yells to woman who bore him)

Me: Um, um, um, um, um! (playing the part as I enjoy his sandwich)

Daniel: Here, Um! (as he hands me the sandwich so I can take another bite)

Me: Mmmmm, Cookie Monster love Daniel's sandwich. Um, um, um, um!

(At this point, my 5-year-old, Hannah, is watching this all take place. While she is enjoying this spectacle, she's also clearly on to my trickery.)

Hannah: Dad, I know what you're doing.

Me: Shhhh! (Then I proceeded to leave the kitchen ashamed that my children have figured me out).

Where'd that house go?

My favorite person to discuss theology with is my 3-year-old son, Jay. My favorite person to discuss Cookie Monster with is my 2-year-old son, Daniel. More on that another time.

Recently, Jay and I were discussing the afterlife and the final destinations of those who trust in Christ and those who don't. He keeps these discussions in his head and brings portions of them back into conversation at the strangest times.

This past week, our church paid a company to demolish and haul away a home next door to our parking lot. We bought the property a few months ago to expand our parking. After church, Jay walked out to my truck with me.

Jay: Dad, can I ride home with you?

Me: Sure you can.

Jay: Dad, why is Mr. Thomas driving where the house used to be?

Me: Well, that's a new place to park and he's moving his car. Did you notice that the apple tree is missing?

Jay: Where did it go?

Me: They dug it up and took it with the house.

Jay: Where did the house go?

Me: Where do you think the house went?

Jay: Um, I think it probably went to Hell.

Dentist

Went to the dentist today for the first time in a while. The good news is that that I have "nice healthy teeth." The bad news is that the spit vacuum sucked my soul from my body. I never realized until today that once that machine removes all your saliva it begins to suck air through your nostrils and into your mouth.

On another bad note, I'm pretty sure the dentist had a lot of fillings today. His coat wafted the essence of burning drilled teeth.

It's all about the wordplay

This past Sunday, my sermon was titled, "Truth Never Changes." One of my two main Scriptures was Proverbs 12.

The final verse of that chapter says this, "In the way of righteousness there is life; along that path is immortality."

Unfortunately for me, I skipped one letter "t" as I read that verse which completely changed its meaning. The end result was that instead of encouraging my congregation to live righteously, I mistakenly stated that "along that path is immorality."

Very big difference.

Even better was the fact that I didn't catch what I had done, and continued preaching. After greeting people as they left, I was informed of my error by my youth group. Needless to say they loved to witness the shocked expression on my face when I realized what I said.

This reminds me of a copy of the Old Testament that briefly circulated some time ago. When printing the portion of Exodus that included the Ten Commandments, the printer accidentally omitted the word "not" from the seventh commandment which then mistakenly read, "Thou shalt commit adultery."

Maybe that should be next week's text.

Jeopardy!

I am a competitive person. I even devise ways to compete against myself (sort of). Years ago, while spending my Summer at my grandmother's house, I devised a way I could compete against myself while watching Jeopardy. I would give myself a point for every correct answer and then ten points for Final Jeopardy. Then I would keep track of my scores from day to day.

We have company right now. One such guest is Val, a High School English teacher who I have the privilege of hiring each year to serve as the Summer Program Director at PMBC. She is competitive as well.

When we discovered that my wife had DVR'd about nine episodes of Jeopardy, we decided that we would watch each show and use my point system to compete against each other.

The game is over. Val won, 5 games to 4. I hate losing, especially to some literature-saturated-test-grading-English-teaching-girl.

Though she may have won this round, at least I can say that I was the one who knew that Benjamin Franklin invented the bi-focals that allow her to read her Tennyson and Byron. History vs. Literature.....bring it on.

LaShaun

Well, after a few days of voting it seems that most commenters have opted to hear about "LaShaun."

While a student at Philadelphia College of Bible in the mid-90's, my roommates and I would frequently host guests of the college. Whenever an activity was hosted by the college administration for prospective students, they would usually ask us to give them a place to stay in our dorm.

At one point, a basketball tournament for high-school students was held at PCB. Most of the players came and stayed for one night or simply commuted to the campus and left at the tournament's end. We were asked to host LaShaun. LaShaun was a strange character. He was an excellent basketball player, but lacked just about every social skill a student should possess.

Instead of leaving at the end of the tournament, LaShaun decided that he liked living with us so much that he wasn't going to rush to get home. He followed us to our classes. He ate meals with us in the cafeteria. Days went by and still he didn't leave.

At one point, LaShaun decided to shave his head in our sink. Apparently this was the first time he had tried this. He shaved the hair so close that he gave himself two nasty cuts that wouldn't stop bleeding. After a while he stuck a few band-aids on his head which looked ridiculous.

LaShaun didn't bring a sleeping bag or pillow with him, so frequently he would swipe a dark blue corduroy pillow from my bunk. I hated lending it to him because he would literally soak the thing with drool when he slept. I tried hiding it, but he always scoured the room until it was found. The pillow became so saturated that I finally gave up on it and refused to ever use it again.

After nearly a week of LaShaun mooching off of us, and showing up wherever we went with those band-aids stuck all over his head, we grew extremely frustrated. Every afternoon my roommates and I would ask each other, "Is he gone yet? Did he finally go home?" In desperation, one of my roommates, Mike, finally asked LaShaun why he wasn't leaving. LaShaun's excuse was that he didn't have train fare to get back to Philly (which was only a half-hour away). Mike gave him five bucks and encouraged him to leave. Later that day, LaShaun finally left, but not before stealing every last piece of change from Mike's room. Mike was furious, but it was a small price to pay to send LaShaun away.

Time for change

Well, it's 2006 and with the new year, I would like to announce some changes that I will be making to "Stump the Pastor." I will admit to you that I get excited about the fact that readership for this Blog is up considerably over a year ago. I'm also happy about the fact that if you do a search for the word "pastor" on Yahoo, this site is currently listed at the #8 spot.

Basically, in the coming weeks, I will be dressing up the look and feel of this site. Nothing major. Once those changes are complete, I am going to ask for a little help from you, the reader. Another blog that I enjoy reading is up to over 5,000 hits each day and I would like to see if, with your help, "Stump the Pastor" can reach that point.

I have some ideas on how to increase traffic. If you have any, by all means let me know. I'll let you know how you can help sometime soon.

In the meantime, since it is a "time for change," I thought you might enjoy a brief story about "change." Since I have several stories that involve change that I may or may not have already told you, I will let you vote for the story that you feel will be the most promising. Once the voting is complete, the story will be posted.

Here are your options:
#1: 35mm case full of quarters
#2: Fall at the Mall
#3: LaShaun