Jump at Panera

It went incredibly smooth. Like it had been planned all along. Or staged for a You Tube video.

I drove into the parking lot of Panera hoping I’d find an open spot near the door. (It was a cold day in the middle of winter—which in Minnesota, extends into May these days.) As I inched down the row toward the Handicapped stalls my heart leaped. I spotted an empty place and raced to pull in! But as I pulled in, a strange site jumped into my view.

The hood was up on the car right across the space from me. An old man in a hat got out of the car and began to motion for me to pull in further. Strange—it was just like the guy at the airport who waves the orange flashlights at the pilots of the jumbo jets to guide them in closer to the exact spot to meet the gangway. “Who is this guy?” I wondered. “Am I being set up? How long has he been waiting for someone to come by? Was he waiting for someone else and I just happened to pull in first?” All kinds of weird thoughts crossed my mind in the fraction of a second that I stared at him. The old man kept motioning at me to keep pulling in… further. Further. A little more. Whoaa! That was good. Right there. I jumped out.

“Need a jump?” I asked, stating the obvious. “Yeah!”… as he started to tell me the story of his car going dead. But all the while he talked he also made quick work of grabbing his jumper cables, placing them on his battery, and asking which side my battery was on. It was so smooth that I wondered if this had happened to him often. He seemed harmless enough—just focused. And efficient. Matter of fact. Like we’d been friends forever.

I was happy to help, actually. It wasn’t an inconvenience at all. He needed help. I was in the perfect—the only—spot to help him. Before I even had a chance to start thinking about the inconvenience it might be… he had started his car. He jumped back out. Had the jumper cables off his battery and mine and put away before you knew it. He thanked me profusely. “No problem… happy to help” I heard myself saying. He jumped back in his car and pulled out. I looked around. Got back in my truck and turned off the engine and walked inside Panera for my lunch-time meeting.

Like I said, It went incredibly smooth. Like it had been planned all along. Or staged for a You Tube video. I felt like I had been a part of something much bigger than merely jumping a car a moment earlier, but didn’t have the full script. Just my part. I thanked God that I could help the old man so quickly and easily. And—I didn’t even THINK about it as an inconvenience. A modest victory for me as well.

Pretty cool, huh? I think that’s how life oughta work more often. Helping each other out whenever and however. Not just friends or family or even neighbors. But strangers too. After all, we’re all brothers and sisters of the same family when you get right down to it. And isn’t that how families act?