a moment

a moment

last saturday we bought a minivan. it was a big step in the life of the jorgensen family. case, the car guy that he is, i'm sure at some point in his life swore to not own, drive, be seen in, etc. a minivan. but if you're going to have kids and live in a state with ultra-compact parking, hence no room to open normal sized vehicle doors and slide your poor child's body out, minivan it is.

but i digress, the point: it was a long process ... 8 hrs. to be exact. so as hour 7 rolled around we realized we were uber hungry and thirsty. as most know, hunger can be waylayed, but thirst ... thirst must be quenched. we dug coins out of every crevice we could find - bags, wallets, pockets, glove compartments, and scrounged enough for a delightful rootbeer from the vending machine. we don't have many run-ins with vending machines, so addi was excited out of her mind. so many buttons to push! i understand. 

so push she did ... the only button with a beverage we could not drink ...tea. casey frantically over-exerted himself on multiple other buttons, perhaps to throw off the machine entirely and have it sputter out our coins in utter confusion. but no. a tea came tumbling down. 

we don't drink tea. mormons don't drink tea. why? because God told a prophet to tell us not to drink tea. He, being God, even thought it was important enough to put it in writing. now i could bring up the tanic acid factoid, and other yadas yadas, but really it's a "God said so, and i choose to follow" type of thing.

returning, the tea. just as we pulled the frigid, mouth wateringly cold can from the icy grips of the vending machine, the loan officer walked up. "want a tea?" case asked, "we don't drink tea."

"you don't drink tea?"

"nope," handing mr. loan officer the can.

"well, i'll buy you another drink. what did you mean to get?"

"rootbeer."

boiled leaves. boiled roots. big difference. 

nothing more was said. so this isn't a missionary story. really, i don't know what the point is at all. but it was a moment of being mormon. on a daily basis i mostly interact with members of the church, so this was a gem of an experience. i wondered what he thought. "what in the world ... they don't drink tea?? who doesn't drink tea?" he didn't say anything though. he just wrote us a nice loan with a nice interest rate.

while we drank our rootbeer.