Who Is It All About?

THUNK!

I can’t exactly replicate the sound in writing. It’s the sound of the driver side mirror on my truck snapping back straight. I have to push it back into place almost every time I go through the car wash because the hi speed air dryers move the air at about 1000 mph.

Except the side mirror was still folded up against the side of my truck…

Umm…wait…what was that sound then?

[flashback to two hours earlier…]

Today I was driving back home from downtown Charleston with my two older boys. We had to go downtown to pick up a sport coat I had purchased from Berlin’s, one of the oldest men’s clothing stores in the city.

This is the first sport coat I have purchased in my adult life, the kind that I will have for the next 20 years type thing, so I brought them along to make it more fun.

I mean, a men’s clothing store where nothing will even fit them for another 1–3 years is super exciting for boys, right?

Well, the giant 28" pizza from Pizzeria Di Giovanni was super fun, so there’s that…

The pizza barely fit through the doors of the truck!

But I digress…

As the truck was passing the ludicrous speed dryers of the car wash, the fateful sound managed to cut through the noise of the tornado force gale drying the truck.

And it dawned on me what possibly had occurred…

I remembered that maybe two weeks ago, my wife, Jessica had asked me about a piece of door trim on the passenger side that was a little loose looking.

Naaah…that’s probably not it.

I paused before exiting the car wash parking lot, and hopped out of the truck. Walking around to the passenger side of the truck was surprisingly perilous! I now know where all the oils from the exterior of the cars goes at the car wash…I slipped and almost fell twice as I walked around the truck to the passenger side.

The ground was SLICK!

When I saw the rear passenger door…I was the two horizontal lines where the residue of the trim adhesive was…

But no trim…

Getting back in the truck, my shoe skidded yet again on the side step and I almost bit the pavement once more…

Did I mention it was slick?

The trim was now somewhere back in the car wash tunnel. I imagined it being pressed agains the side glass wall by the pressure of the drying blowers.

And then…

We drove out of the car wash totally and began the drive home.

Nope, no explosion, no crash, no earth shattering event, no moment of clarity…

Until I came to the stop sign 20 feet past the exit.

And I pulled to the side of the road and stopped completely.

Because I realized that what had happened was not about me.

If it were only about me, it would have been a simple path forward. Just drive home and move on with life.

My truck has 186k miles on it, I love it, but I’m not going to spend any brain power worrying about a piece of plastic trim. From my perspective, it’s not a piece to worry about.

I’m not really concerned with how the side of the truck looks. Everything runs, and most importantly the AC works!

And I know the piece of plastic trim really isn’t important to my wife.

But what is important to her is me paying attention to details.

So I parked the truck and walked back to the car wash.

Fortunately, the concrete is not slick at all at the entrance to the car wash. So I had sure footing walking up to the attendant to explain the situation.

“Excuse me sir…” as I described the missing piece of trim and where it was likely to be in the car wash.

As a credit to the the young man and the training they receive as employees there at Tidal Wave, he took the hold of the problem and made his way over to the tunnel.

Truly, I had no expectation that the stray piece of trim would be located, but it would not be because I had blown it off.

It would be because the air dryers had blown it off…

Sorry…couldn’t resist that one!

Maybe 2 minutes later, he walked out of the tunnel carrying the prodigal trim.

Content and grateful to Tidal Wave, I returned to my truck and continued the trip home, trim safely in the truck bed.

Honestly, I have no idea how I can get it put back on the door of the truck, but that’s not the point!

The point is that I had the opportunity to demonstrate care. Not about a piece of plastic, but about what that piece of plastic meant to someone that means a lot to me.

I want Jessica to know that what is important to her is important to me.

Because it’s not just about me. It never is.

At every turn, with every decision, we impact those closest to us. Often it’s the small things that don’t seem important to us mean more than we realize to those around us.

Leaving the car wash, I had a choice.

Go home and forget about the piece of trim. (easy)

Go back and ask about the piece of trim. (not difficult, but not easy for me…)

The next time you face a choice, which path will you choose?