May 5, 2010

A Swinging Time


When our daughters Sarah and Crystallynn were eleven and thirteen years old respectively, they called home from WalMart one day requesting that I bring a truck when coming to pick them up. With much enthusiasm in their sweet voices they emphasized and exclaimed that they had a “BIG Surprise” for me!

That was the day we got our wonderful green and cream stripped patio swing. It cost them over a $100 in child labor money; going door to door selling chocolates they had bought at Grocery Outlet then marked up to earn a small profit was more difficult then anticipated and other days they spent in the almost unbearable Idaho cold shoveling snow before soliciting yet another ten houses for another job. I realized the price they had paid; the planning, the sales, the work, the savings...I knew that this was truly a gift I would always cherish.

Once home with the giant brown box we noticed that it looked almost miniature when compared to that massive empty pick-up bed. Could such a thin box really contain that wonderful giant two seater display swing with hidden compartment between and drink holders they had enjoyed swinging on in the store? They swung to their hearts content while trying it out; til the two back legs would lift up in unison with the end of the momentum and thrust of the swing going as far as it could forward before gravity would abruptly win the fight and momentarily pull it back in the other direction. The usually nice, but temporarily grouchy, lady on staff had asked them, in a strict adult voice, to stop swinging and was probably greatly surprised when, only moments later, they lined up at her register to pay for and purchase the abused item. How was she to know? Usually the children and young folks just abuse the items with a sort of distant stare in their eyes as though they may be remotely interested. And sometimes they even resort to asking childlike questions, in a nice hard to be impatient with way, while never really presenting anyway to make that interest into reality because of their lack of funds. But that day Crystallynn and Sarah had funds.