We were exhausted after a day at Disney Quest. You wouldn't think that
playing video games would wear you out. But it did. Physically and mentally, we
were exhausted. We slept-in Saturday and had a slow time of getting up and
ready. Our plans for the day were to visit a Florida beach, however, with rain
in the forecast, we decided to return to Hollywood Studios. We have done almost
everything we wanted to do at Hollywood Studios, so, we didn't need a
lot of time there.
There was a real estate open house in the neighborhood
we are renting, so, we checked it out and had a nice conversation with a
real-estate agent. We explained that our long term plans were to move to
Florida. Our subdivision has many vacation homes, so, the neighborhood is
usually half empty at any given time - which cuts down on traffic. The
houses are well maintained to preserve their investment quality and encourage
renters. The houses are 4 or 5 bedroom and cost $180K-$260K. But she warned that
the market is improving and prices are rising.
The real-estate agent
explained that this time of the year, the humidity is very high. In the morning,
it isn't bad. But it increases throughout the day until it has built
up in late afternoon causing rain the wash the humidity away. That is why we are
seeing so much rain in the late afternoon and evening. That was true on Saturday
when the sky opened and rain drops the size of golf balls bombarded the area.
Luckily we were indoors - I wouldn't want to have been hit by that
rain fall!
There is an old story about Jesus knocking on your door
disguised as a stranger. He asks for help as a test to see whether you are a
good Christian. Who among us would turn away a stranger in need?
We were
on our way to Hollywood Studios when we saw the rain coming and took shelter in
a Wendy's. In the booth behind us was an old guy talking very loud on a cell
phone as to make sure the entire restaurant could hear him. According to his
story, he lost his house in the Oklahoma tornado and the Red Cross relocated him
to the Disney World area. But Florida doesn't take Oklahoma Medicaid and his
wife can't get her $45 diabetes medicine and the insurance company
won't pay on his house until September. In rapid secession, he was calling
various aunts and uncles and telling his story, quickly providing the statistics
on the number of people who have been relocated, the numbers who can't get
medicine, and his plight. He ended every call asking them to pray for his sick
wife at church. I was thinking about digging out $45 and giving it to the guy,
but something kept telling me that this wasn't right. Why was he calling all
these people? Why was he being so loud? Why was he getting Medicaid? Why did he
have a smart phone? Why would the Red Cross relocate him to Disney World? How
can this old guy have so many aunts and uncles? He would often say "The tourists
down here all laugh at us. But imagine if a tornado took away Disney World, what
would they do?" He would often discuss all the children that were killed at the
school by the tornado. This guy was scamming! He was sitting in restaurants
trying to get people to give him money. In my home area in New York, the
homeless stand on the corner and ask for money. It is too hot to stand outside
in Florida. This guy had really upped his game!
I don't know if the red
cross relocates people to Disney World. I don't know whether this
guy's wife needed $45 in medicine. I don't know if that was Jesus and we are bad
Christians. But it sounded fishy. We left Wendy's feeling very guilty and
debated in the car what we should have done. In the end, we made a donation to
the Red Cross to ease our guilty conscious.
With our possible encounter
with Jesus behind us, we made it to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. There
were only half a dozen rides we needed, so we had a good time at a slow pace.
There is a Toy Story ride where you wear 3-D glasses and shoot at targets
balloons, plates, etc. While you are shooting, you are in a cart that whips you
around a track. As we whipped around one corner, the cart jerked and Linda
cracked her head into the back of the cart. Hopefully she didn't get a
concussion. Or maybe it would be good if she had a concussion because then I
would own a little piece of the park after the law suit! I think we might try
that ride again tomorrow.
Eating inside Disney World is very expensive,
so, we decided to leave and eat "Off Property". We went to Outback for a light
late dinner. When the drinks arrived, I noticed my glass was dirty, so I sent it
back. That was replaced with a second dirty glass. Then a third. And I noticed
Linda's glass was dirty too. Come to find out, this OutBack sells a lot of ranch
dressing. The Ranch Dressing dispenser is next to the clean glasses and so the
clean glasses keep getting sprayed with ranch dressing. I don't know if that
makes me feel any better about getting a dirty glass, but at least I know I
won't get sick. If you like ranch flavored beverages, this Outback is for
you!
We returned home and, as I always do, I lead the group so I can
unlock the house's front door. The lock system is very interesting. There is a
combination that you enter into a key safe which releases the door key. You then
unlock the front door with the door key and take the door key with you inside
the house. When you leave, you lock the front door with the door key, enter the
combination, and return the key to the key safe. The first couple of days when
we left the house, I was so concerned about the key safe's lock combination that
I would forget to lock the door! We would arrive home at the end of the day, I
would lead the group and get the key. Oh No! I didn't
have to use the key to open the door! Thank God Linda doesn't read this blog
because she would kill me if she knew I left the front door unlocked on several
days.
As we settled down to sleep, we couldn't get that old guy at
Wendy's out of our mind. He was a really good scammer and almost had us
believing him. But what if his story was real? We had made a donation to the red
cross, which made us feel a little better. But what if that was actually Jesus
sitting in the booth behind us?
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