G O D

      HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR!

I can prove it with this story:

I have a 12-14 year old riding mower.  It is limping on it's last legs.  At full power it doesn't have enough gumption to run the bagger on it unless the grass is two-day old clippings.  To make it short, I needed a new mower to keep my yard looking like someone lives here.

Three weeks ago I had a grumpy man come in with a clock in a box. 

He wasted fifteen minutes of my time telling me this horror story about his ex-wife and how she had kidnapped the clock and used it for 20 years until it was no good any more.  Finally he came to the clock and told me it no longer worked but was personal to him so he wanted it fixed. (NOW).

After he left I examined the clock, and from the dust inside the case, it was evident that the clock in fact had not run for the past twenty years while being held captive.  Just a simple letdown cleaning and oiling the movement, reinstall in the case and it ran fine.  For a simple oiling job I charge $75.00.  I had it back together running a couple of hours after he left, but it was an eight day clock so I wanted it to run for eight days before I concluded that the patient was revived. Each and every day he called at least once to check on the progress, and on the week-end at least five times.  Finally eight days passed, and I told him he could pick it up the next day.

As soon as he drove in, I knew there was trouble brewing.  He stepped out of his car carrying a black wall clock.  He came into the house, set the wall clock down, and proceeded to tell me how clock repair people were a bunch of crooks and charged too much.  Then he told me that this wall clock was his, and that his ex had kidnapped it also. He told me that it didn't work either.  Then he announced that my fee for the repair to his "good clock" was going to be $100.00 plus the black wall clock.  He then handed me five twenty dollar bills, picked up his "good clock" and walked out the door, got in his car and drove away.

So at that moment I had been paid $100.00 for a $75.00 Job.

I took the face off the wall clock, and it was in the same condition as the other clock, dirty and dusty and had not been run for 20 years.  A simple dirt clean, oil, and reassemble put that clock in good running order, so I hung it up and put a $250.00 price tag on it. it ran for a full eight days and kept good time.

A late 20-something oriental man came into the shop carrying an eight-day cuckoo clock with no weights, and an eight-day ansonia cast iron clock (worth $250.00-$300.00 running properly), but it did not run properly because it had the wrong pendulum in it.  The boy was from Viet Nam and told me he had to have a good price to fix his clock because he was a "refugee from Viet Nam" and I basically told him he didn't know what he was talking about because he was at least twenty years too young.  He told me the story about the clock being his grandfather's and it had been left to him and had not run for 40 years or more.

Then his eyes fell to the black wall clock, and he almost shouted that he liked that clock better than his grandfather's.  He went on to rant and rave about how his grandfather was too poor to have the clock worked on and continued for 20 minutes before he took a breath. Finally he said "I will trade you even, this clock and the cuckoo clock for that clock.  After I laughed at him, we negotiated for several minutes and ended up trading with $165.00 plus his two clocks for the black wall clock.  So now I had a total of $265.00 plus a cuckoo clock that I haven't looked at yet, and a GOOD ansonia iron clock.  I oiled the ansonia, put the proper pendulum bob on it, swung the pendulum, and lo and behold it runs and keeps time, and is complete.  A little touch up here and there and it was ready to sell.

Then a man who was looking for a wall clock came into the shop.  He looked at the clock running, and asked me "What will you take for that clock today in cash, "I've got my wallet with me".  I hesitated like it was paining me, and told him, "well for cash, I can let it go for $250.00".  I thought he was going to break his arm getting his money out.  So when he left, from the two contrary men, I ended up with $515.00 for a $75.00 clock cleaning job.  A friend of mine named David came up to me and said that a friend of his had lost his house, and had a 1-year-old mower just like my Troy Bilt, and was I interested in buying it for $400.00.  Since I had $515.00, I agreed to buy it if it was in good shape and working properly.

And that is how God provided me with a new lawn mower to use along with my old mower with low power.  Only God could have used two semi-belligerent men to get me a new mower. 

 And if that don't prove God has a sense of humor . . . what will? 

Roy A. Parker

Ordained Minister

703-447-7261

8665 Sudley Road #340

Manassas, Va. 20110

The United States of America is a Christian Nation