The Florida Project: Does Jesus eat at Wendy's?

We were exhausted after a day at Disney Quest. You wouldn’t think that playing video games would wear you out. But it did. Physically and mentally, we were exhausted. We slept-in Saturday and had a slow time of getting up and ready. Our plans for the day were to visit a Florida beach, however, with rain in the forecast, we decided to return to Hollywood Studios. We have done almost everything we wanted to do at Hollywood Studios, so, we didn’t need a lot of time there.

 

There was an open house in the neighborhood we are renting, so, we checked it out and had a nice conversation with a real-estate agent. We explained that our long term plans were to move to Florida when we retire and we are collecting as much information as we can so we can perform the proper analysis on making a perfect move. Our subdivision has many vacation homes, so, the neighborhood is usually half empty at any given time – which cuts down on traffic. The houses are well maintained to preserve their investment quality and encourage renters. The houses are 4 or 5 bedroom and cost $180K-$260K.  But she warned that the market is improving and prices are rising.

 

The real-estate agent explained that this time of the year, the humidity is very high. In the morning, it isn’t bad. But it increases throughout the day until it has built up in late afternoon causing rain the wash the humidity away. That is why we are seeing so much rain in the late afternoon and evening. That was true on Saturday when the sky opened and rain drops the size of golf balls bombarded the area. Luckily we were indoors – I wouldn’t want to have been hit by that rain fall!

 

There is an old story about Jesus knocking on your door disguised as a stranger. He asks for help as a test to see whether you are a good Christian. Who among us would turn away a stranger in need?

 

We were on our way to Hollywood Studios when we saw the rain coming and took shelter in a Wendy’s. In the booth behind us was an old guy talking very loud on a cell phone as to make sure the entire restaurant could hear him. According to his story, he lost his house in the Oklahoma tornado and the Red Cross relocated him to the Disney World area. But Florida doesn’t take Oklahoma Medicaid and his wife can’t get her $45 diabetes medicine and the insurance company won’t pay on his house until September. In rapid secession, he was calling various aunts and uncles and telling his story, quickly providing the statistics on the number of people who have been relocated, the numbers who can’t get medicine, and his plight. He ended every call asking them to pray for his sick wife at church. I was thinking about digging out $45 and giving it to the guy, but something kept telling me that this wasn’t right. Why was he calling all these people? Why was he being so loud? Why was he getting Medicaid? Why did he have a smart phone? Why would the Red Cross relocate him to Disney World? How can this old guy have so many aunts and uncles? He would often say “The tourists down here all laugh at us. But imagine if a tornado took away Disney World, what would they do?” He would often discuss all the children that were killed at the school by the tornado. This guy was scamming! He was sitting in restaurants trying to get people to give him money. In Rochester, the homeless stand on the corner and ask for money. It is too hot to stand outside in Florida. This guy had really upped his game!

 

I don’t know if the red cross relocates people to Disney World. I don’t know whether this guy’s wife needed $45 in medicine. I don’t know if that was Jesus and we are bad Christians. But it sounded fishy. We left Wendy’s feeling very guilty and debated in the car what we should have done. In the end, we made a donation to the Red Cross to ease our guilty conscious.

 

With our possible encounter with Jesus behind us, we made it to Hollywood Studios in the afternoon. There were only half a dozen rides we needed, so we had a good time at a slow pace. There is a Toy Story ride where you wear 3-D glasses and shoot at targets – balloons, plates, etc. While you are shooting, you are in a cart that whips you around a track. As we whipped around one corner, the cart jerked and Linda cracked her head into the back of the cart. Hopefully she didn’t get a concussion. Or maybe it would be good if she had a concussion because then I would own a little piece of the park after the law suit! I think we might try that ride again tomorrow.

 

Eating inside Disney World is very expensive, so, we decided to leave and eat “Off Property”. We went to Outback for a light late dinner. When the drinks arrived, I noticed my glass was dirty, so I sent it back. That was replaced with a second dirty glass. Then a third. And I noticed Linda’s glass was dirty too. Come to find out, this OutBack sells a lot of ranch dressing. The Ranch Dressing dispenser is next to the clean glasses and so the clean glasses keep getting sprayed with ranch dressing. I don’t know if that makes me feel any better about getting a dirty glass, but at least I know I won’t get sick. If you like ranch flavored beverages, this Outback is for you!

 

We returned home and, as I always do, I lead the group so I can unlock the house’s front door. The lock system is very interesting. There is a combination that you enter into a key safe which releases the door key. You then unlock the front door with the door key and take the door key with you inside the house. When you leave, you lock the front door with the door key, enter the combination, and return the key to the key safe. The first couple of days when we left the house, I was so concerned about the key safe’s lock combination that I would forget to lock the door! We would arrive home at the end of the day, I would lead the group and get the key and…. Gee…. I didn’t have to use the key to open the door! Thank God Linda doesn’t read this blog because she would kill me if she knew I left the front door unlocked on several days.

 

As we settled down to sleep, we couldn’t get that old guy at Wendy’s out of our mind. He was a really good scammer and almost had us believing him. But what if his story was real? We had made a donation to the red cross, which made us feel a little better. But what if that was actually Jesus sitting in the booth behind us?