This year for Christmas, Jerry and I decided to buy each
other a practical gift. One gift, that’s
it. We decided on a ping pong
table. Now that we live in a home that
has a basement, we finally have room for one.
Also it’s a great source of exercise.
(are you getting the picture of whose idea this really was)
Anyway, I researched on Craig’s list and found a good deal
on one that was relatively close to where we live. So, last Saturday we went to look at the
table. It was a great one! Hardly used at all. We paid for the table, and with the help of
the couple we bought it from got it loaded into the back of our truck. Jerry spent a great deal of time securing the
table with ropes and bungee cords. Did I mention that the temp was in the
teens, we were up over 9,000 feet, it was windy and there was snow everywhere?
With our Christmas gift secure, we started down the
mountain. We drove at least 4 miles on
iced dirt roads with hairpin curves and grades of about 6%. Pretty treacherous journey. But we made it safely back to the main
highway. Awesome job.
We were cruising along feeling excited about our first
competitive game we’d play as soon as we were home, when suddenly there was a
heart wrenching sound. I couldn’t look,
but Jerry’s words “there it went” told me the sad story. We had driven through some cross winds that
completely picked up the table and sent it flying onto the road. I couldn’t breathe and certainly couldn’t
look. Jerry turned around and drove back
to the crash site. There on the shoulder
of the road lay the remnants of our Christmas gift. Pieces everywhere. Nightmare!
Jerry got out and started gathering up the debris. I could tell he needed help so I got out and
sunk immediately down in deep snow. I
think my adrenaline kicked in about this time and I suddenly had super strength. We managed to get the big pieces into the
back of the truck without getting run over by oncoming traffic. I picked up pieces of metal, rollers, corners
of the table and several broken ropes and cords.
We got home and I finally cried. I had wanted a ping pong table for years and
to be that close and still not have one was pretty overwhelming. I prayed about it and asked God to help me be
at peace. I asked Him to bless the
people we had bought it from and then I demanded that the enemy replace what he
had stolen from us. I went and told
Jerry that I did not blame him for what had happened at all. I saw how much time he spent securing the
table and he had done everything he could. I knew he felt bad for me so I
wanted to let him know it wasn’t his fault.
The next day we took the pieces out of the truck and put
them in the garage. We started looking
at the damage. Amazingly, all the important
pieces were still there. A little
mangled, cracked, scratched and broken, but still there. At first, I wanted to take the whole load to
the dump and just get it out of my sight and move on. However, the more we looked, the more I
wanted to try and put it all back together.
We started straightening out metal, replacing screws,
bending hinges and gluing corners back together. The main bracket of the wheels was completely
broken off, but Jerry was able to cut another board using the old one as a guide
and we painted it the same color. We
bought two new wheels which was less than $9.00. Jerry reconstructed the support legs and
today we put all the pieces together.
It is a miracle. It
doesn’t look brand new like it did when we bought it, but it works
beautifully. I would say it has a lot
more character. What I considered
useless at one time, with a little elbow grease and vision turned into a great
gift. Today Jerry and I laughed, got
some exercise and enjoyed our first game of ping pong.
Merry Christmas to us!
I am so thankful that the table did not blow out and hit
someone else’s car. Thank you God for
your protection!
I'm posting a picture of the table!
