Just Another Chapter of My Eccentric Life

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope yours was great. Mine was. We had the entire world over to our house today. Food was everywhere! On the counters, the cabinets, all in my brother's hair...

Anyway, this isn't a typical Thanksgiving blog post. I wanted to first recommend that you read Patrick Dunn's thoughts on Thanksgiving (he's amazing and hysterically funny - check it out here) and then that you read another chapter in the continuing drama of Catey and the random store clerks. I promise - there will be a Thanksgiving-related point somewhere in here (if I can find one... no, really! There will be a point!)

This blog continues the drama of the store clerks where the posts titled "But I Don't WANT a King Soopers Card!!!" and "Why Can't I Just Have A Normal Life???" left off.

Yesterday, when I was dropping off my contest submission (yeah, the one that is exactly 1,499 words long) at PakMail, I was there with my dad. I come in and the guy behind the counter looks at me and says, "Hey! Haven't you been in here recently?"

Yeah, he was talking to me. I said that I had been. He took my envelope and said, "Is this another writing contest?"

How did this guy REMEMBER that stuff???

That's what my dad said (but without several of those question marks after it so that it sounded more civil). The guy behind the counter (who, by the way, did not have weird long hair) shrugged and said, "I don't know. I have a memory for useless stuff."

He ended up remembering a lot of other crazy stuff - for instance, that I had come with my mom the time before, that I'd stood at the other counter, that one of my other contest entries had also been going to Purcellville... It was totally weird.

What is it with me and random store clerks???

Oh yeah! The point!

When I was sitting at the table with my sister and brother with the rest of my family close by and surrounded by most of my friends in this state (and thinking of and praying for the ones who weren't with me visiting or living other places) I found myself thinking about the little experiences that make life special. Topping the list I made of things I'm thankful for was the fact that God gives me a heart for writing and that he gives me stuff to write about! Some of that is big, like my novel where the whole story idea came formed pretty much in one shot and I just had to develop and expand. Some of it is just the little things that make life unique and worth it. If I didn't have grocery store clerks going a little overboard on their job and Pak-Mail clerks stalking me, then I probably would have lost my zing for life a long time ago (and you probably all know just how zingy I am about life - some people might call it hyperactivity, but they simply don't understand that to keep up with the speed my brain's going, my body and mouth go a little fast too : ) ) In that case, my writing would dry up, my enthusiasm and fire for God would be gone. How depressing would that be? Instead, I thank God that He gives me those little things (as Patrick Dunn writes, things like raisins and puffy sea creatures - those things taht no one thinks about and therefore doesn't appreciate).

Stay tuned for more adventures of Catey and random store clerks... with my luck, there are sure to be more... many, many more...