"Let's Go to Lowe's Tonight"

Kelley said this to me today in an email.  The context was that she wanted to do SOMETHING tonight, and not stay at home.  So Lowe's was her idea.  She has a good reason: looking at swingsets for Kate, who is about to turn 1 in a couple weeks.

I replied and asked her how it feels to be getting older.

I'm 11 years older than she is.  I've already acknowledged that I'm getting older (rupturing my Achilles Tendon at age 37 playing flag football with a bunch of college students assured me I'm getting older), and I recognize more easily that people younger than me are getting older THAN THEY RECOGNIZE IT THEMSELVES.  Of course, I guess it's like that for most people when they look at younger generations.

I've been involved in youth ministry since 1997.  My first full-time position was in a small town and there wasn't much to do there, so we went to the nearby larger town (about 15 minutes away) or to Greenville or Columbia CONSTANTLY.  I used to say that I've put more miles on church vans than on my own personal vehicles.  I've taken van loads of kids to see millions of movies I had no desire to see, to millions of restaurants at which I had no desire to eat, on millions of mall shopping trips when I had no money to buy anything . . . ALL SO THAT THOSE KIDS COULD HANG OUT TOGETHER IN A SAFE, POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT.  Of course, I enjoyed hanging out with them, too.  I was single and had no wife at home TRYING TO RULE MY LIFE.  (That's a joke.  Kelley is too small to rule me.)

Nowadays, teenagers don't so much like hanging out together in real life; they prefer hanging out on Facebook.  I guess.  Go figure.  Makes no sense to me.

My point in all this is, NOT ONCE IN ALL MY YEARS OF YOUTH MINISTRY have I gotten in a van and asked a bunch of teenagers, "So where do y'all want to go tonight?" and heard the reply, "Let's go to Lowe's."

So Lowe's it is.  And that makes me happy.  So much better than Old Navy, Rooms to Go, Target, etc.  I like looking at lawnmowers we can't afford (right now), and getting a small/cheap hand tool I don't have, and buying MORE bungee cords (among other things, I use them on my home gym to increase the resistance . . .)