Vacuum Shop

To Do List: 

1. Buy groceries for mother.

2. See how much developing film costs.

3. Buy a new vacuum bag.

            Well, what began as a non-eventful errand day turned to hours of theological discussion (my favorite!). First, I went to a Rite Aid store to figure out how much it would cost to get my rolls of film (found in my mom's desk drawer) developed. As my mom had predicted, it costs a fortune (around $20-30/roll, with about 5 rolls). *sigh* At least I asked. And now, if I win the lottery, that will be one of the first things to try; I'll go straight to the store and ask for the expensive photos that will reveal what our past contains (knowing my younger photographer skills) possibly random pictures of the cars in my neighborhoods...but they were overseas, so that makes it better, right? I digress.....

I politely said "thank you" for all the information the man at the First Aid had given me; mostly telling me how old the film rolls are and ensuring I was reminded that they don't even sell the film things anymore. :p Next I went to the Shoppers across the street. I only had a few things on my list, so it wasn't too tough to shop, I probably only took about 10-15 minutes. Happiness. :)

When I came home, it was still light out (though verrry cold), so I decided to vacuum out my car. Unfortunately, there was no bag in the vacuum. My mom recommended that I go to a vacuum store a few minutes from the house, or the Ace Hardware store. I chose the vacuum store. 

And thus it began....

When I entered the store, there was a gentleman at the front counter with a broken vacuum, so I politely looked around the store looking for the type of bag that I needed. I found something that I thought would work and I patiently waited a few more minutes until the man was taken care of. The man running the counter was very polite and took care of business. When it was my turn he showed me exactly what I needed (though this hasn't been confirmed yet since I haven't tried the bags yet). 

When I was signing the receipt he mentioned something about being smart, and I commented that my brother was the one who was smart and went to Oxford. I mentioned that he is political science/philosophy major, and he just kind of leaned back. He summarized philosophy as Aristotle, Plato and Nietzsche. Indeed, it seemed he had done some reading himself. We very quickly reached the topic of absolutes, which I knew would shoot right into Theological discussion. I was already happy. 

He began saying there were no absolute truths, then we got into figuring out how the world worked. He seemed to believe that if he brought up amazing science and explained all the history he knew, then he'd "win". I wasn't interested in winning, I just wanted a simple discussion about who God is. He kept saying, "If God exists", "If God is real"...etc. It feeds my mind to have people not directly agree with my point of view. I asked him if there would be a difference in his life if God did not exist. 

It was quite interesting that he wanted to establish a basis that assumed God was in control and that life is about Him, but he kept on describing the purpose of life, "To build your own empire. Life is all about people." Hm...so when I brought up God, saying that He is the reason for everything and that the Great Commission guides us he said, "So it IS about the people!". I was perplexed at how I could explain that our purpose was to show others about God, but that life isn't about them. He was quite surprised when I mentioned that everyone deserves to go to hell, "Me too." "What...what have you done?" "Sinned." Oh snap.

I was a little sad whenever he took a break from our main discussion and trailed off to something about science. 

Did I mention I eventually asked his name? Yeah, near the end. Aaron.

He would work on helping customers every once in a while (more often than I thought, considering it's a rather small shop....for vacuums). He was rather good with customers:

Woman: Hey, I'm hoping you can fix this. (carrying in a leaf blower)

Aaron: I hope so too! Let's take a look. 

He discovered that it was Asian made, which got him talking about language, so I figured I'd share that my major is American Sign Language and Interpreting. Turns out his mom works with an interpreting agency, which is actually rather awesome! He exclaimed that he had probably seen me before....probably not knowing that I don't interpret yet. :p 

I entered the shop at about 3:25ish, once we had finished talking (forgive me, I've forgotten quite a lot of the dialog) it was dark outside and he was closing up shop at 6:30pm. So there you have it, what a discussion!