Good Afternoon. I hope you are having a good Tuesday. I have nothing heavy today, just a short little “What Would You Do” question. Here’s the dilemma.  Let me set it up.

You are at work and you go to the bathroom while you are in the middle of a texting conversation with a family member. You take your phone and go to the bathroom. You really have to go! The only stall available has leftovers from the person before you! And I mean food leftovers not liquid leftovers. How disgusting! You are angry but what can you do but flush and do your business, with your cell in hand. When you are done, you begin to fasten your clothes. You put your cell under your chin, for a few seconds. Right before you are about to flush, your phone falls in the toilet. OMG! What do you do? Do you fish it out or do you scream or do you cry or do you go get someone else or do you FLUSH! Lol. What do you do?

This is your familiar work restroom where the debris in the commode before you was at least debris from someone you know. What if the same thing happened when you were at a rest area or a football game or a gas station? Lord have mercy! I had a friend who once told me this same story except his was binoculars. He left them there!

So….it’s your cell phone looking up at you in the toilet, with your own body waste in the toilet, following body waste from the mystery person before you. Tell me, What Would You Do!

Holla Back!

I need your advice on this What Would You Do question.

I got married July 14, 2007, almost two years ago, Praise the Lord. I hired a photography based on two things. Number one, he grew up with my brother-in-law and was his friend and my brother-in-law was going to use him for his own daughter’s wedding. (that wedding didn’t happen but still my brother-in-law had planned to use him) The second reason was because he is a Christian and I wanted to support him and sow into his ministry by hiring him. The cost was $1500.00. Let me spell that out, fifteen hundred dollars! That is fifteen one hundred dollar bills! Whew! So I had to pay half up front – $750.00 – and the other half was due when he was done.

I really wanted him to be at my wedding rehearsal taking pictures. For $1500.00 surely that wasn’t too much to ask right? In the hustle and bustle, I didn’t realize until after the rehearsal (we had so much fun at my rehearsal!) that he didn’t show. I started to panic because he told me he would be there. Ok, but since he wasn’t there I knew he would come through on everything else. On my wedding day he was to be with me from 8:00am until the end of the reception. Wedding morning I went back into panic mode when I didn’t hear from him. Finally he called and said he was there. But…I never laid eyes on him until he arrived at the church at 12 noon. I am the bride!!! WHAT IN THE WORLD!!! He missed all the things I did that morning. IE – Smiling. Getting my hair done. Smiling. Getting my nails and toes done. Smiling. Gathering up all my stuff in preparation to leave for the church. Smiling. Floating on air with butterflies in my belly. Oh well… it was 12 noon, he was there. Only lost 4 hours of pictures of the beginning of my big day…

He did take several pictures but he didn’t do the video recording. My brother-in-law ran the video camera although I had requested that from my photographer. He wanted to charge me some astronomical amount on top of the fifteen one hundred dollar bills I was already paying him! Uh…no! It was his suggestion for my brother-in-law to be the videographer. (I say this with utter glee) At one point during my receiving line I noticed my brother-in-law singing a duet with my cousin, which meant, there was no video camera rolling! I needed someone to bring me a program to see if there had been a misprint because I knew I hadn’t hired my brother-in-law to sing, as I really thought his job was VIDEOGRAPHER! But in efforts to stay graceful I smiled and continued my job, hugging folk that honored me with their presence at my wedding! )

Shortly after noticing my brother-in-law singing with no video camera in his hand, again, I nonchalantly looked around and to my chagrin, I see the most appalling thing; my PAID photographer was on the drums accompanying my brother-in-law singing his duet! WHAT IN THE WORLD!!! This meant no video camera and no regular camera! Let’s stop here and review the situation: I had already dropped $750.00, he didn’t show up at my wedding rehearsal, he missed the first four hours of my big day and now, instead of snapping me with all my well wishers hugging me and my groom, he was playing the drums for my non-video recording brother-in-law!!! Pray church! I feel a pew about to come out of place!

I am still not to the crux of my What Would You Do question.

Today it is May 18th, exactly 57 days before my two years anniversary and (drum roll please….) I have received not nary a one photo from my: brother-in-law friend, saved and loves the Lord, late arriving, drum playing photographer! Not one! Yes, you heard me right; I have not gotten my July 14, 2007 wedding pictures. Holla!

Here’s what I’ve done. I have tried to be nice phone call after phone call, voice message after voice message and email after email. 9 times out of 10, on those voice messages, just to reiterate, I leave my cell number, my husband’s cell number, my work number, my husband’s work number and our home number! The times he did answer, at the end of the conversation filled with promises, as if looking business-y he would ask for our phone numbers for the umpteenth time, I guess to impress me. Didn’t work! Bad business is bad business and so unimpressive!

Eventually, he stopped answering my phone calls. Then in early March I called from my co-worker’s cell in efforts to throw him off with the strange area code and phone number. He answered! He actually admitted to doing this to two other couples, but he finally got theirs done. Mine was the only one he hadn’t completed and I was the one that had been waiting the longest. In that conversation he promised to have my pictures to me by March 31st. He rattled off my address, as if to reconfirm, although he has had my new address for months!

March 31 came and went and about mid-April he called and said he had made real good progress. Ok, seriously, that is not what I want to hear! And what is real good progress? My 2 ½ year old grandson might have been able to figure this out and make real good progress 21 months after the fact!

So now I am thru!!!! Three weeks ago I called him from my phone, of course he didn’t answer. I left a message saying I just wanted my money back. Forget the pictures, I have enough non-professional, but good pictures that family and friends took. I just want my money immediately or I would have no choice but to prosecute! Yes I did! And I hung up feeling nearly vindicated! I knew things would start moving now! Lol. I have heard nothing. Absolutely nothing!

Call me lazy but I really don’t want to do the whole small claims court thing. I just want what is due me! Really what I want is all my pictures and all my money back. Here’s the thing, if I do have to end up taking him to small claims court, I WILL also ask for monies for my pains and sufferings! (I know a “s” doesn’t belong on the end of those words, but 21 months = PAINS and SUFFERINGS!)

To my question:  what should I do? Continue to wait? Call the Better Business Bureau? Make my brother-in-law put a fire under him? Call the courts and see what my options are? I don’t know. You tell me, what should I do? What would you do? Help me! Holla back!

They used to say it takes a village to raise a child. As with so many things that have disintegrated, so has the village. The villagers moved to the “burbs” and they want to be the only ones with the daunting task of raising Johnny! I personally think it is a team effort! Yes, the parents have the final say. but it’s very refreshing to have help in so many aspects of raising that little one. When we grew up anybody in the church could get on you. I remember my friend and I were cutting up while the preacher was delivering the sermon and he called us out!!! Uh… needless to say, I got in trouble when I got home too! And don’t let a teacher get on you at school and then let the parents know. Ooooo wee! It was on! There was no hot headed mamas and daddies rolling up in school going postal on the administration. No sir! (there was always an exception, even way back then) If those kids had to be at school six hours a day, under the tutoring of that person, and in essence being raised about ½ of the day, five days a week by that person, wouldn’t it make sense for that person to have some leeway with the care and discipline of the child? Use to be. Not today!

It is hard raising a child. Other than marriage ) I think it is the hardest job in the world!!! To me, today’s parents (generalization) are the laziest, most lackadaisical, lenient, wanting to get rid of their kids, parents I have ever seen! Children are so misbehaved these days. They will cuss at you, disregard you when you tell them something, threaten you with their mama or daddy, some may even pull a weapon on you! I’m just saying!

There are a lot of new age methods for raising children that tout a new and better way to make Johnny come out better than the last batch! Statistically, children are worse today than ever! And it all starts young. This is family week, but check out the two scenarios below and tell me what would you do.

Scenario #1: You just bought new furniture and it is but a few weeks old. You still enjoy the fresh leather smell every time you walk in your house. You have gotten compliment after compliment on your exquisite taste in picking this combination. You are pleased with your decision and plan to enjoy your furniture for years to come. One day your friend comes over and their child is, instead of sitting down in your new leather chair, jumping to sit in your chair! Repeatedly! You and the mother are standing right there! Your adrenaline is forcing your heart to double the beats per minute as you watch your expensive furniture disrespected. But not only are you watching, the mother is watching too! And the child; the child keeps eyeing you and essentially saying, nah nah nah nah nah. You can’t say anything to me or my mother will go off on you! Help somebody!!!

Scenario #2: You’re at the grocery store standing in line. A mom and little one are standing behind you. The little tyke keeps running their kiddy cart into the heel of your foot…and it hurts! The mother is on the cell phone paying absolutely no attention to this state of affairs. The first time you kind of turn around and look at the child and then up at the mother, smile and step up a little, hopefully out of the range of the tykester. You do this two more times but it is apparent, little Johnny/Johnita is making a sport of running into your foot! The mother is oblivious to this baby crime spree. Should you interrupt the mother’s call and ask her for a band-aid!!!

In each scenario the parent is not doing their job! If you know me, you know I have said so many times, the two easiest things to train are pets and children. That is why God gives them to us at birth! But society today is made up of parents, especially the parents of the “I hate to see that kid coming” little kids, that don’t want to train their child yet don’t want you to say anything to their little china doll!

So in each of these situations, what do you do? Would you say something to the parent? Would you say something to the child? Would you just say nothing and take action and lift the child out of your chair and make them stand the rest of the visit? Would you take your items and get in another check out line? Would you beat the snot out of the child or better yet, the parent? Just kidding!!! (although I am convinced, there are not really bad kids, but bad parents) Seriously, what would you do? Let us know and share your experiences with the village and without the village. Holla back!

We’ve been talking a lot about our first black President Barack Obama and racism and actions that stem from the hatred of racism. I have a scenario. You are walking through the mall with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Dennis Rodman. The three of you are walking, talking and minding your own business when an unidentifiable skinhead comes up and spits on all three of you. I think we can surmise what Dr. King would do and probably assume what Rodman would do. Their history, reputation and actions precede them. But here’s the thing: what would you do?

We would all love for the world to think the best of us, but you know what emotion was invoked just now when you read it, and you know what you would do or what you think you would do. Tell the truth and share with us what an outward, direct, public show of a race provoked demeaning act, such as this one, could and would provoke you to do! Tell us if the morals and Christianity (if you claim to be one) you possess will cause you to turn the other cheek and say Father forgive them. Be honest and tell us: What Would You Do???

Holla back!