Last Saturday I arrived at Buzzy’s Country Store mid-morning and decided to change out my truck’s wiper blades, something I’d been putting off doing all winter long. As I was removing the old wiper blade on the truck’s passenger side , the blade’s arm slipped from my grasp, smacked down on the wind shield and cracked it.
Very pissed, I was then cycling between Stage 1 (denial) and Stage 2 (anger) of dealing as in “I can’t believe that I was that f*****g dumb,” when two college kids pulled into the Store’s parking lot.
A young man and a young lady got out of the car and still in my pissed mode, my first thought was “how can I get rid of these guys so I can go back to what I was doing.”
However, I recognized the young man as having been in the Store previously. He smiled and the young lady with him initiated the conversation by saying “I am Emily Cerna and we are visiting local businesses to ask them to contribute to a fund raiser we are having for a trip to Nicaragua.”
As stated, I was still in my pissed-off frame of mind, and thus, my first impulse was to tell them to get lost and leave me alone. Searching for the polite way to say this, I was caught a little off guard when the young man asked me “Where’s the dog?” It forced me to explain to them that Jenny had just left with Pam to take Bruno to the vet. The young man went on to tell Emily about his previous visit to the Store with several other friends and how much they had enjoyed it. I found myself calming down some from my pissed off mode and decided to cooperate with them. “What are you guys trying to raise money for?” I asked.
They then explained how they were members of the College’s Raíces Hispanas Club and that last year they went to Nicaragua to help students there and they wanted to go back again this year and help out some more. They were looking for donations of items that they could raffle off to raise funds for the trip.
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| Chelsea, Haber, Christina and Jonathan |
By now I was semi-calmed down from my cracked windshield screw up, so I invited them into the Store to show them my blog post of their prior visit (click here.) Sure enough, the young man Haber was right there in the center of the photo (right) that I had included with that post from last year.
As I rummaged around looking for my Buzzybucks gift certificates, Haber and Emily continued to tell me about their upcoming trip to Nicaragua and what they hoped to accomplish. I finally located the Buzzybucks certificate and took this photo (below) of Emily and Haber accepting it.
We then walked back outside and I saw that my windshield crack was now starting to expand. My former p mode was starting to resurface when I felt something in my mind check it with “It’s not that big a deal, just get the whole thing replaced.” Thanks to my interactions with Emily and Haber my mood had changed for the better. Bottom line, to feel better, act better I guess.
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| Emily and Haber With Buzzybucks |
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| From The Baynet |
I didn’t think anymore about all this until I saw a Baynet article (click here) discussing their efforts. (Emily is even mentioned in the article.) The other young lady mentioned in the article Christina Tono was with Haber and his friends the first time they came into Buzzy’s.
You too can donate to this effort via their webpage here https://smcm.givecorps.com/projects/1052-campus-life-and-student-programs-raices-hispanas
Oh, Stage 5 Acceptance, I’m having the truck windshield replaced next week.