As we were leaving, I approached a member of the wait staff for a mint.

“Ma’am, I was wonder—”

The look on the person’s face made me think that I’d made an error – that I had mistakenly called a him a her.

“I mean — sirrrrrr.”

But that wasn’t right either. He didn’t really look like a he but nor did she look like a him.

I turned for some backup from Danny. He was gone. Mentally and physically. I vaguely remember him walking out the door and falling into the landscape, laughing hysterically….like a girl, now that I think about it.

I turn back to my dilemma.

“Uhhh….I need…a mint… A mint. Do you have a mint?”

“We don’t have any mints.”

Hearing the voice should have given me a hint as to the gender…but it didn’t. I was toast.

“Alllllrighty then.”

And I walked outside to a Danny Payne who was crying to hard to utter a complete sentence.

What are supposed to do? All I wanted was a mint. I didn’t want to ruin this person’s life and cause gender-identification issues. I’d blame Danny but I tend to run into these situations on my own.

I remember my sister-in-law asking they lady who was bagging her groceries one day when she was due. The woman replied – “I’m not pregnant.”

Now, if a man was to do this…it’s game over. There is no comeback. There is nothing that could be said to remotely redeem the situation. Nothing. With my sister-in-law – she says – “Oh, I’m pregnant and I just think everyone else is as well.” And all was right in the world.

It was totally genius.

There is no genius for what I did.

“Oh man…I’m sorry. I remember my voice not changing for 13 years, as well.”

“I loved you in the Matrix.”

What do you say?

Danny proved to be no help whatsoever. An utterly worthless wingman.

Little bit later in the meeting, we were looking over spiritual gift surveys and which ones we thought were most helpful to us, clearest, least amount of church language. We were looking online, looking at books when I remembered the one my good friend and mentor Gene Wilkes used in his book Jesus on Leadership. I rushed down to get the example, turns out you can download it for free from the Lifeway website.

Then I remembered — Gene is FAMOUS!! He’s an author!! I do know someone famous and so I called him right there in the middle of the staff meeting on speaker phone…just knowing that Gene would answer and say “Grant!! How are you? Why aren’t you watching the Rangers right now?” Or he’d say something in Greek and I’d be forced to go look it up.

Instead, I got his voicemail. Which is cool…I get it…but that pretty much solidified my “I don’t know anybody famous” status.

PS – Gene called me back later and did ask me why I wasn’t watching the Rangers. Which at that point I was. We were screaming and didn’t hear the phone ring. Go Rangers.

Awesome entries this week! We had over 100
Paul Buchheit came in first with this one:
“If I had a dollar for every time I heard that…oh yeah, I guess I do.”
Jasper H. was a close second with:
“I should have taken my talents to South Beach!”
And we had these other great captions:
Louis
“(*sung to the song “The Hokey Pokey”) You put Tim Tebow in, Kyle Orton out, you put Tim Tebow in and you shake them all about…..”
John was first with this one:
“Who put this in my front yard?”
Derek entered this one a few days later
“Did they have to put it on my front lawn?”
Mark Knot (from a cubicle in the basement)
“Now I know how Jake Plummer felt”
DR Larkin
“Isn’t a Wheaties box enough?”
Dennis
“Week one and I’ve already been voted off the island.”
Chris
“And I thought Chicago was bad.”
Grant
“I really think the Friar look was his best one.”
Brandon Schmitt
“I guess ‘THE DRIVE’ now means seeing this on the way to the stadium.”