And the winner is...

This past Thursday, Stephen was at work, which, on that day, involved sitting in a hole underneath a building in Anchorage when he got a call on his cell phone. Some guy called to tell him he’d won a $3000 DeWalt tools shopping spree from their hardware store. Yeah, right.

Stephen was skeptical. …to say the least…

He called to tell me about the phone call he’d received. I looked it up online and found that there was, indeed, a contest being sponsored by that hardware store. And Stephen vaguely remembered filling out a little slip of paper and dropping it in a box on the store counter several weeks back. So, it turned out that it wasn’t a prank! Hooray!

The next day, we went to the hardware store in Anchorage (the main store with a larger selection) so Stephen could pick out which DeWalt tools he wanted. Naturally, he’d spent the entire evening before scouring the internet to make a prioritized list of his tool options.

Right up to the moment when they told him to start gathering his selections, Stephen was still a little skeptical that this was some sort of prank, or at the very least, a misunderstanding. Once, he came to terms with the idea that they really were going to give him his choice of $3000 worth of tools, he was like a kid in a candy store. It was like a dream come true. I haven’t seen him that giddy for quite some time.

We spent a couple of hours at the store while he made selections, got a “money left” tally, swap things around, made more selections, and finally ended up with a big pile of new tools and a large diamond plate toolbox for his truck. He was justifiably pleased as punch.

The store clerks were super helpful and very accommodating. Sometimes it seems like customer service is a forgotten art. And here, in this case, where we weren’t even spending any money, these store clerks treated us like their most important customer. It was awesome. And, let’s face it, it made for a VERY Merry Christmas!