Checking For Bombs

By Peter (Rediscovering the Church)

My father once worked in an office which shared a parking lot with an army recruitment office. This was in England, back in the 1980's and, back then, England was going through a rough period where we had frequent terrorist threats and attacks.

Every now and then there would be a credible threat against all military offices and bases and the army guys would come by my Dad's office and nicely tell him that he should check under his car for bombs before going home.

It was all very exciting, but no bombs were ever found. We lived in a far too insignificant town for terrorists to come around our way. The threat was still real though, and the checks were necessary.

As I was reminiscing about those 'good old days' recently I started to really think about how important it is for us to check for hidden bombs. I'm not talking about C4, high explosive devices that will make your car jump three feet in the air like in a movie but rather hidden bombs in that threaten to destroy your life and your relationships.

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Cash Register Syndrome

By Mallory

So you’re at the grocery store, or Target, or wherever you shop, I guess. You’re at the cash register paying for your stuff. The cashier hands you the receipt and your change.

What happens next?

If you’re like me - and a lot of other people, I’m guessing - you hustle to put your change away and get out of that line as fast as you can, even if there’s no one behind you and even if you’re not in a hurry.

It's kind of an unnecessarily stressful moment. It's not like the cashier isn't going to start helping the person behind you in line, anyway. Why do we feel like we need to hurry? Something is propelling us out of that place, and we don’t really stop to think about what that is.

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You Know You Have A Big Family When...

By Megan (Steps for Brady)

1. Your lineup of plates at dinner time resembles what you remember your elementary cafeteria counter looking like.

2. Your recycling bin fills up by mid week because your kids eat a jar of applesauce during one meal.

3. Sorry mom, you can't ride with us, we don't have any empty seats in the van.

4. After looking at the pile of socks you are buying, the check out lady at Target asks you if you are a teacher doing some sort of art project with your class.

5. Hmmmm...where to put the baby's Christmas stocking on the mantel...things are getting tight up there!

6. You start to consider all the benefits of buying a conversion van.

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Life Is Funny: You Know You're In New York City When...

By MAD21

Favorite funny things we heard and saw on our weekend in NYC

1.  “Arms up.” We were all in our hotel room, some were talking, some were watching TV. In mid-sentence we hear my hubby say, “Arms up!” So a few of us put our arms up and were like, what? My hubby was just referring to something he saw on the TV. Don’t we follow directions well? Or maybe it’s just because we were in NYC.

2.  “I don’t appreciate getting dinged at.” There were probably 1000 rickshaws pulling people in the city. We had more issues with them almost running us over than the NYC taxi cabs!

3.  Boxing squirrels. When walking through Central Park, we had stopped at one point to look at squirrel sitting on a rock. Someone jokingly said, “Uh, we have squirrels at home.” Just then, another squirrel came up around the other side of the rock and started pounding on the other squirrel. It looked like they were boxing. Which leads us to…

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Fingerprint Friday: Our Beloved Teddy

By MAD21

Years ago, in another lifetime one might say, I managed an arcade as a second job. It was easy pay and I could do my college homework while working. They loved me there because I actually didn't like playing the games, therefore I paid more attention to my job (as if there was anything to do anyway except unjam the machines and give out change).

On one particular day, it was really slow. Some friends had come to visit and were all playing around. I was standing by the 'claw machine,' you know, the big machine where you move the claw in hopes it will land on something, hold it long enough to then drop it into a shoot where you can retrieve it.  Knowing first hand how things in this machine are crammed in specifically so people can't get anything, I had never once even tried it. Big money waste.

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