Alright, settle down there. Let’s talk about something that’s got more folks on edge than a long-hot summer in June – patience. I was at the hardware store one Saturday, my old stomping grounds before I retired. A young fella, probably all of 30 with a phone glued to his hand like it was his […]

Ever been to a church potluck and seen that one guy – let’s call him ‘Generous’ Gary – trying to win sainthood by buying a whole roasted pig for the whole town? He means well, bless his heart. But then you look around and see half the folks didn’t bring a dish, just a side […]

Have you ever looked at your toolbox and felt a little overwhelmed? I mean, really looked at it. All those wrenches of different sizes, the screwdriver set with more heads than a Hydra, the mystery boxes of nails and screws that seem to multiply on their own? Running my hardware store for thirty years, I […]

Alright now, picture this – I’m standing in my old hardware store on a Tuesday afternoon, helping a fella named Gus try and figure out why his brand-new riding mower was spitting oil all over his prize-winning rose bushes. Gus is a good man, a hard worker, but he’s about as mechanical as a tea […]

I remember a long time ago, I was down at the hardware store, which is where most of my best thinking got done. I saw a friend waddling in, looking like he’d just wrestled a goat and lost. He wheels a broken lawnmower in with him and says, “Bojangles, this thing’s a communist plot! It […]

I remember one Saturday morning, clear as a bell. My daughter was about seven years old, and she came running into my hardware store with tears streaming down her face. “Daddy! My doll’s head fell off!” she wailed, holding the poor thing up by its leg like it was a roadkill rabbit. Now, I could’ve […]

One time my wife, God bless her patient soul, caught our son, Timmy, trying to “negotiate” with his little sister’s teddy bear. He’d gotten into some mischief and was down on one knee, explaining that if the bear would just agree not to snitch, he’d trade him for a whole box of chocolate-chip cookies. Now, […]

I remember the day old Man Harper – bless his soul – told me about the time he tried to sell a left-handed hammer. Took him a solid hour of polite confusion and a few good-natured laughs before the fella walked out, shaking his head. Now why on earth would anyone need such a contraption? […]

Remember the good old days in the lunchroom? Watching the smaller kids get picked on by the bigger ones, only to see them come crawling back later with a half-eaten cookie and a pleading “Please, can I have some?” It’s a natural human instinct: we fear asking for what we’re worth, worried we’ll be seen […]