Rant #2,779: Miracles

How was your Thanksgiving?

Mine was fine.

My wife cooked up a storm, we had family over, and although it was a small gathering, everyone really had a great Turkey Day.

After since hearing other people talk about their Thanksgiving experience, it seemed that the general consensus was that although people celebrated the holiday as best they could in 2020, we were still in sort of a panic mode last year, even when celebrating.

This year, even though the panic mode still kind of exists, people were in more of a relaxed mode, and we ate up a storm.

I know that I did!

Black Friday means Record Store Day for me, and I woke up early to wait on line at my local record store to feast on the goodies there.

No turkey, but plenty of vinyl.

And I got what I wanted—I was number two on the line—and it was fun as it always is.

Then there was a break in the festivities on Saturday; a day that I listened to some of my purchases, and then came Sunday, or Sunday evening to be precise about it.

As the sun set, Jews around the world celebrated the first night of Hanukkah, and I celebrated with my family this festive holiday.

It had been a little bit of a tough day.

My mom wanted to visit my father’s grave on Sunday, two days before what would have been his 90th birthday.

It was a dreary day here, with the first wisp of winter with a few snow flurries, but during the day, we trudged on to the cemetery, met my sister and her husband there, and we did what we did there.

But the evening was Hanukkah, and I do believe that rather than cry more tears, my father would have wanted us to have fun, and that is what we did.

I went out to get food for the evening, something that I do every weekend, and I went to the local fast food places as well as one popular venue which I won’t name, and for obvious reasons …

Read on.

I went to this one place, and while it wasn’t too busy, there were people waiting to order their food.

There were only three people manning the store, and even though it wasn’t super busy, they had their hands full.

As I got up to the counter to make my order, I saw that two customers in front of me, the store’s manager was giving out extra food to that patron, saying, “We have too much of this, and I have no refrigerator room to keep everything, so everyone gets something extra.”

So I made my order, proceeded to the checkout, and lo and behold, I got extra food—

Four pies, and not small ones, either.

Either I didn’t hear right or the manager gave me what was next up in her line of pies, but I thought she said “chicken pot pies,” but what I received from her was two apple pies and two pumpkin pies—

For free!

So, with my order and my Hanukkah food gifts in tow—I mean, it was already sundown when I left the venue—I drove home, triumphantly with extra food to give out to my family.

I plan on bringing at least some of my “pie-age” to my sister’s house when we celebrate Hanukkah there this coming Sunday.

All of that dovetailed into a lovely fast food dinner, and then to the lighting of the menorah, and this exchanging of gifts.

With all of that, the miracle of Hanukkah was in place last night.

Where once, one day of oil somehow stretched to eight days of light way back when, last night one order of food somehow stretched out to four pies that I did not know that I was getting when I entered the store.

Maybe this was a modern retelling of the Hanukkah story, maybe not, but it made for some fun comparisons, and conversations, as I ate my hamburger and fries and my family ate whatever I got them for the first-night Hanukkah dinner.

As you can see, miracles do happen, and they happen when you least expect them to happen.

Sure, this was something of a minor miracle, but I will take them when I can get them.

I am taking the day off tomorrow. I will tell you why when I return on Wednesday. It will be worth the wait!