"All words are symbols that represent unspeakable realities. Which is also why words are magical." (Donald Miller tweet)

Thursday, May 06, 2010

l'hotel

We've been busy lately. Spike and I seem to be ships passing in the night, as Blissed scheduling picks up, and my summer class suddenly uses up two evenings a week. So last night - after Worship Team practice - we thought we'd call it a night and head home with nothing to do except quietly catch up and fall asleep.

We were just pulling out of the parking lot, when a good friend waved us down. He had car troubles and we all quickly realized he couldn't make it home with his vehicle the way it was. We only live a short distance from the church, so we invited him to stay in the newly-renovated, mostly bare, basement of our little one-bedroom house. And in the morning, car troubles could easily be dealt with.

We followed him back to our house, and pulled a little pizza out of the freezer to end the now not-so-quiet-but-still-pleasant evening on a contented note.

As we walked in the door, the phone rang. Two Blissed guys, working a reno job in our town this week, had seen Murphy's Law at work in unprecedented ways yesterday. It was 10:30 PM, and they were just now finishing up for the day, with an early start planned for the next morning. They don't live locally - there hardly seemed a point in going home - could they crash at our place?

We put the little pizza back in the freezer, and ordered an extra-large while I dashed out to the Hasty Market to get some OJ, cereal and bread for 4 adult males who would likely wake up hungry in the morning.

Pillows, towels, blankets and Spike's extra t-shirts were distributed, the hockey game was turned on, conversation and laughter ensued, and we finally went to bed around 1 AM, amused at the final outcome of our "quiet evening". This morning I got up early to pick my way carefully past bodies snoring on couches, turn on the coffee pot, and head outside for my morning piece of peace before the day got fully started.

And happily reflected on the absolute truth that no matter how many male friends of ours need a place to crash on any given night ... I get to sleep in my own bed. And I get first dibs on the shower.

I can live with that.