You Won’t Believe What Happened!
On Saturday night, I got a (highly unusual) phone call from Dylan – on our home phone.
“Oh you’re there!” he said, sounding exasperated. “I have a predicament.”
“You do?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“Well, David came to see me.” David is Dylan’s friend from home, 700 miles away. “He just showed up and surprised me! And I’m supposed to go to work in like two hours.”
Ah yes, Dylan is still working at the Halloween haunt. It’s only on weekends, and Dylan makes very little money, but he really wanted to work there.
As I knew it would be, it’s been a problem nearly every weekend since the Halloween season began. But this was a big deal. Dylan really, really, really wanted to spend his evening with David.
“I texted my boss,” Dylan continued. “And I told him what was going on and asked if I could have the night off. But my boss said, ‘We’re understaffed tonight and could really use your help.”
Dylan has a good boss. He doesn’t get angry, and he likes Dylan. He knew exactly how to phrase his request so that Dylan would consider the consequences of his actions.
Meanwhile, I knew exactly what Dylan wanted from me.
“I’m not going to give you permission to skip work,” I said. “It sounds like he really needs you, and you did make a commitment to do this job.” I also reminded him of a night, not long ago, when David couldn’t go to a concert with Dylan because David had to work.
“But David had a full-time job,” Dylan said. “This is just a Halloween haunt.”
After much discussion, I suggested that Dylan have David work with him. (They’d worked together the previous year at a different haunt.) My suggestion would solve both the understaffing problem and Dylan’s ability to spend the evening with David.
“Tell your boss you’ll work for free,” I said. “But say that you are leaving at 10:30. Then you can spend the rest of the evening with David, but you’ll still be there for most of the crowd.”
Dylan thought that was a pretty good idea.
“I knew there was a reason I called you,” Dylan said – making my night.
About three hours went by. David didn’t want to work with Dylan. But Dylan went into work, resigned to, and prepared for, his slightly altered shift.
omg you’re an adult, I texted.
Surprisingly, a short while later, I got another phone call from Dylan.
“Mom! You won’t believe what happened! I went in to work all ready for my shift…? And my boss came up to me and said, ‘We’ve got enough people now; you can take the night off.’ He even shook my hand!”
Dylan was nearly ecstatic.
“Oh, that’s great!” I said. Now he could spend the entire evening hanging out with his best friend from home – guilt-free, doing whatever they wanted to do.
Dylan could hardly contain himself. “Being mature and doing the right thing really paid off!”
It sure did, Son.
(And thanks, God.)