[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/6″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][nectar_icon icon_family=”iconsmind” icon_style=”default” icon_color=”Accent-Color” icon_padding=”20px” icon_iconsmind=”iconsmind-Aquarius”][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/2″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]I pulled out my wallet and removed my debit card. Then I stuck it into the card reader and waited to enter my PIN. As I entered the last number, Raymond started talking.
Actually, he’d been talking for the past 45 minutes, without stopping. He talked at me when we left our fifth wheel. He talked at me when we got into the truck. He talked to me for the entire drive to the hardware store.
He hadn’t stopped. Raymond doesn’t stop talking. He just talks to everyone.
So, when I say he started talking, I really mean he started talking to me. Up to that point, I had had about three minutes of Ray talking to everyone else in a 20-foot radius, and it was therapeutic, in a way.
I didn’t have to field his questions about electrical currents or black holes. I didn’t have to get sucked into one of his thousands of hypotheticals. No, for those three minutes, I was able to focus on what I was actually at the hardware store for – to pick up a couple of small pieces of wood to fix so I could fix the drawers in the kids’ bunkhouse.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/3″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][nectar_single_testimonial testimonial_style=”bold” color=”Default” quote=”He hadn’t stopped. Raymond doesn’t stop talking. He just talks to everyone.”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/4″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][nectar_single_testimonial testimonial_style=”bold” color=”Default” quote=”He smiled and ran to me, covering the 20 feet between us in about a second. I braced for impact.”][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”3/4″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]The cashier handed me the receipt and I nodded to Ray. My son had asked me something, and I hadn’t quite heard what it was. I went to my default answer, and that was my first mistake.
I half-heartedly reached out to stop him as he bolted to the front of the store and touched one of the many intricately carved bear statues. Then he yelled to the cashier, “How do you train all the people to carve these statues?”
The cashier looked at my son quizzically before giving his quiet response. “I don’t train anyone to carve those. Some local …”
“Why are there so many?” Ray fired back. And then, “Do you have any bear carvings at your house? Have you ever carved a bear before? Do you have any kids?”
I cleared my throat and Ray stopped talking. Then he looked at me. “Let’s go, buddy, we need to get this piece of wood cut.” I motioned for him to come over to me with a wave of my head. He smiled and ran to me, covering the 20 feet between us in about a second. I braced for impact.
As Ray’s head made contact with my stomach I looked up at the cashier and smiled. He gave a concerned look in response, and pangs of self-conscious guilt for having such a rambunctious child crept into my stomach and began to slowly spread … as if it were my fault that my six-year-old was acting like a six-year-old.
“Let’s go, Ray.” Then I looked at the cashier once again. “After you,” I said. The cashier let out a small sigh. Then he started walking to the cutting room. He had one more job to do for us: he had to cut our piece of wood.
“Do you wear safety goggles when you cut wood?” Ray asked the man.
He nodded.
“That’s good. You don’t want to get sawdust slivers stuck in your eyeballs. They’ll get irritated, and you’ll have to go to the doctor, and it will get itchy.” Then, before he took his next breath, “How big is your saw room?”
Raymond, as it turns out, is an expert tour-taker. He loves seeing new things, experiencing new people, and smelling new smells. Two weeks before we had traveled down to my parents home, Ray had taken a tour of a bakery.
That had been a six-year-old’s paradise. Especially the pastry section. During that tour, the questions from Ray had come at a similarly furious clip. But, apparently, he’d picked up more than a little bit of information about how to make bread and treats. He’d learned a little bit about small business management, and it was at this point in his conversation with the cashier at the lumber yard that he decided to test the cashier’s knowledge about inventory management.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″ shape_divider_position=”bottom”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”2/3″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]”Do you know what a supply chain is?” he asked his unsuspecting victim.
“What?” the man asked, as he stopped in his tracks.
“I said, do you know what a supply chain is?”
“Sure,” came the response.
At this point, I took a step back and took everything in, not as a parent, or a participant, but as a spectator watching something interesting.
“That’s good,” Ray said. “Because supply chains are important … especially when you have a lot of inventory like this.” He waved dramatically at the wood surrounding us.
The cashier/wood cutter’s eye began to twitch, but then, a huge grin spread across his face. “Oh really,” he said, now fully into character. “What else do you know about supply chains?”
“Lot’s of things,” Ray quipped. “For one, yours is small.”
The man frowned. “What makes you say that?”
“You only have two stops in your supply chain. That’s small. The bakery I toured had seven.”
“What are the two stops in our chain?” the man said, brow furrowed.
“You’re the last stop, so you don’t count. Stop number one is the forest, where they chop down the trees. Stop number two is the lumber mill. You’re next, right?”
The man folded his arms and nodded. “That’s right. And you know what, we do have a small supply chain.”
The rest of the experience passed by rather quickly. The man cut the wood, we took it and left, and Ray talked my ear off all the way home, while I fixed the drawers … actually, he hasn’t stopped yet.
And, after all the frustration I get every single day from listening to that kid flap his gums, after every time I tell him to stop talking, I think back to the day he taught the lumber guy about supply chains and I smile.
That kid says a lot of things … to lots of people. And every once in a while, when I get to be a spectator to the spectacle, I smile to myself take a deep breath because he never ceases to surprise or amaze me, when I take the time to listen.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” width=”1/3″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][nectar_single_testimonial testimonial_style=”bold” color=”Default” quote=”At this point, I took a step back and took everything in, not as a parent, or a participant, but as a spectator watching something interesting.”][/vc_column][/vc_row]