Missing the Sign is Costly

I know what you’re thinking; there are lots of ways I could go with this column. Missing the “bridge out” sign can ruin your whole day. Missing the sign that your wife wants you to stop thinking about yourself and just listen to her can make for a quiet evening. Missing the sign that says “no shoes, no service” can leave you hungry. And since it’s baseball season, let me toss this one out there as well. Missing the sign your catcher gave you can lead to a passed ball, and a run scored.

I missed a sign, and it cost me a few hours and more than $200. It happened one Saturday in December, when my wife and I were traveling to a southern city in the Old North State to meet relatives for brunch. Cindy had errands to run when we returned and so did I, so we decided to leave a car in Graham and pick it up when we got back into town. I thought of a place right off the interstate where a restaurant used to be years ago, and told her we could leave my car there and drive hers.

We went to the brunch, had a great time, drove back to Graham all fat and happy, only to find that my car was gone. I had noticed when I left it that morning that it was the only car on the lot, but that didn’t register with me that maybe there was a reason for that.

When we discovered it missing, our first thought was that it had been stolen — until I walked out to the street and saw a small sign on a pole, informing all who bothered to read it that parking in this lot is not permitted, and all violators will be towed. Good grief. In all my years, I had never had my car towed, unless it was broken down on the side of the road. I called the number on the sign; the man who answered owns the wrecking company and had personally hooked my car to his truck and hauled it to his fenced-in lot. I noticed he was a bit short with me on the phone — a tad guarded you might say. Of course, I was short with him when he told me the amount of cash I had to give him to ransom my vehicle from bondage. “There’s the fee I charge to pick up the vehicle, and there’s a fee I charge to store it,” he told me, explaining why I had to get two Benjamins and change out of the ATM.

We drove to the wrecking company and waited for him to arrive. While we were waiting, I alternated between thinking about what could have been done with the money I was about to hand over, and fuming about his so-called “storage fee.” I figured the car couldn’t have been in his lot more than a few hours. So when he arrived and was stepping out of his truck, I said to him, “Hi, I’m the one who called you, and what do you charge for storage?” He faced me, having stepped down from the cab, and said, “How much is your life worth?” Well, that question led made me to pause and reflect, but only for a second.

I said, “Well, my life must be worth plenty. Jesus paid for it on the cross.” He then explained that he was a Christian, too, but that there had been numerous occasions when he was hooking up a car at that same lot and the owner approached him ready to fight, sometimes with a weapon. “The people who park there are going into the hotel behind it to get drugs, or something else.” Pause and reflect. I said, “OK, but I was going to eat bacon and eggs with my wife’s father and stepmother!”

The end of the story was laughter, and I met a brother in Christ. I also learned the lesson again that I need to pay attention to the signs. The ones on the road are important, but so are the ones on the faces of the people I love.