Yesterday, Matt had a tough day at work. Building a theme park in Shanghai costs a lot of money and takes enormous coordination betwween governments, departments, cultures, budgets, and languages. Throw in multi-hour meetings with type-A personalities, and ... tough day at work.
My big on-the-job challenge was when Martin jammed my stapler. He tried to bundle together about 50 pages using sheer force, and the result wasn't pretty. I don't have a pair of needle-nose plyers at work, much less a spare stapler, so mild panic set in. Seriously, my stapler is, umm, a staple in my workday.
I brought it home for Matt to fix. When we were riding the elevator up to our apartment, I showed him Martin's handiwork. He looked at it, grimaced, and said, "Yikes. That's jammed." More mild panic. I thought about buying another one. I thought about our accountant showing me the number that represents what I spend on school stuff. It's many digits long. More mild panic.
While I started dinner, Matt fixed the stapler. And while he had the plyers out of the toolbox, he took care of a bracelet of mine that had lost a charm, too. He is a very nice man.
When he asked the blessing over our meal, Matt expressed a lot of gratitude, as he always does. Rarely, though, does me make a request. Last night was an exception. Matt's prayer went something like this:
"Thank you that I can help this wonderful woman by fixing her stapler. Thank you for that. And ... please send me some staplers to fix at Disney."
Matt's prayer touched me, not just for its beauty, but also for its truth. We spend so much time in our jobs seeing very little progress and feeling even less appreciation. Now and again, what joy to simply fix something that's broken.
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