Northern Adventure, Part 1

It was a dark and stormy night.  Not literally but figuratively.  A lone candle flickered at the end of the proverbial tunnel. 

It all began benignly enough with a routine 1,500 mile drive to Minnesota.  Things were going along quite nicely when the engine began to race a little more than usual.  Then, on an upgrade, we lost all power.  The first episode of the waiting game began.  Note to self: people in Madison, Wisconsin are not in any hurry to help stranded motorists along the road.  They are in a hurry, though—so much so that they don’t have time to change lanes to give a stranded guy a little space.  After what seemed an eternity of screeching at the children to stay out of the oncoming Interstate traffic, infinite Indian circle trips, and numerous denied requests for water, we finally greeted the tow truck driver.  Then proceeded a wild goose chase on the Information Superhighway.  Phones smoked, batteries panted, Internet connections strained, and voicemails clogged as we endeavored to find places, not only for a broken-down truck, but also for a 36-foot trailer.  Apparently it is a matter of set doctrine in Wisconsin for pastors to ignore their phones on Friday afternoon.  Fortunately, we were able to contact one pastor who had strayed from this tenet of church policy, and regaled him with our dilemma.  He was quick to respond that we could not park at his church because they had just finished paving the parking lot and it was not cured yet because of the recent rains.  When asked for other possible locations, he gave us the name of another area pastor that might allow us to park.  We called this pastor, but he did not come to the phone.  His wife answered, and told us that he was on sabbatical (no joke), and could we please call one of the deacons.  Three deacons later, we ran out of phone numbers and still had no answers.  So, we called the pastor back.  His wife continued to field his calls, and after several more calls, we finally got in touch with someone willing to help.  We discovered that when one is on sabbatical, it is a breach of ethics to drive two blocks to the church to deliver an extension cord.  Who knew? 

A deacon and his wife brought us some luggage, and we began packing to be gone for about two weeks.  Let me hasten to add that packing on the spur of the moment is never my favorite thing to do.  It is only worse when all the clothes that need to be packed are in the dirty clothes hamper.  It has been said that haste makes waste, but, whether or not this is true, we can empirically state that haste makes forgetfulness.  For instance, Paul remembered his cuff links, but forgot to bring his shirt.  This was a considerable oversight considering the lower temperatures of Minnesota.  In addition, the wild gesticulations during his preaching made the use of paper towels inside his suit jacket somewhat impractical.  We considered asking the pastor for an extra shirt, but decided that his 19-inch collar would lend an cowl-like effect to the outfit and would probably distract church members with the sight of overmuch chest hair.  We opted instead for a fitted neck and three-quarter length sleeves from another church member.  It was quite the fashion statement.

Despite the faux pas in apparel, the services went surprisingly well.  However, this chain of unfortunate events was only a harbinger of things to come.