The Balancing Act

It just wasn't her day...or was it?

Lance saw the accident waiting to happen long before it actually did. With a crowded bar and grill, it’s a wonder it didn’t happen a lot more often.

Tonight it was a matter of when, not if.

With the drink orders taken, Andrea returned with all nine drinks on her tray, holding it high above the heads as she passed through the crowd.

One innocent bump or back up or sidestep from a customer and any number of fellow customers would have glass and liquid all over them. To even attempt the hold-the-drinks-high move required a lot of practice, confidence, and physical strength.

Andrea made it through the first wave of people but she had one more group to wade through. She could see the target table so she only had a dozen more steps before she could offload the drinks.

When a man near her began to celebrate a touchdown he saw on the gigantic screen above the bartender, he raised his hands and shouted, taking one full step backwards. Unfortunately, Andrea was right in his path and her tray of drinks came crashing down on the table on her other side.

Celebration man apologized profusely to Andrea and to the table she spilled the drinks on.

“Tell you what,” the man said loud enough for the entire table to hear, “My fault completely, Buy you all a drink plus the drinks that were spilled. I just won a good chunk of change on that one touchdown. Hope you weren’t hurt, young lady. Please put it all on my tab.”

Indeed, the table of men were satisfied at Celebration Man’s generous offer. After all, accidents were accidents in a crowded bar.

When Andrea opened the tab folder forty minutes later, she stepped back at what she saw: his signed receipt for all the drinks and five crisp $100 bills, the largest tip she had ever received to date.  

The thought of now being able to buy her three kids new school clothes before they started a new school year in a week was overwhelming. Tears started to flow.

“God does work in mysterious ways,” she whispered as she pocketed the bills and walked back into the kitchen. The peaceful smile never left her face.