Today I’m trying out curbside pick-up and it’s not as simple as it is made out to be.

It sounds simple – you order something, drive up to the store and someone hands you your ordered product.

It’s sort of like A&W back in the 50’s and 60’s. You would drive up to a stall, order your food through an intercom and then an employee would run out or roller skate out to your car with your food order. 

It was pretty easy, but everything you ordered was known to you. Everyone knows what a french fry looks like and, though different restaurants sell them in different sizes or shapes, each restaurant only has one size for them.

The other day I needed to order some hardware products – one item was a threaded rod. 

It sounds simple, but I needed to choose the size of the threading and the online pictures of the different rods were all the same picture! 

I couldn’t tell which was larger and which was smaller. And the sizing was weird – M5 32×24. I’m not a handyman so these numbers didn’t help me at all. 

I didn’t know if a M5 was thinner than a M6. … I do know that with electric wire, the sizes go in the opposite direction: the higher the number the thinner the gauge of wire.

Who does that anyway? The electricians guild long ago must have thought it would be funny to mess with people’s minds and make 10 a really thick gauge, while making 18 a really thin gauge of wire. 

My problem was I didn’t know if people did that with threaded rods too. And since the pictures were all the same, I couldn’t tell.

If I could have gone into the store, I could have picked up each size, compared them and chosen the one I wanted. But with having to order online, I first needed to take a course in hardware management … and I needed to take the course quickly, so I could finish my order and get going on my project. 

Before long I had about three or four windows open on my internet browser, scrolling back and forth. 

What I discovered is the “M” stands for metric, and the number next to it stands for the diameter in millimetres. The next number is the pitch or the thread count. We are not talking about cotton sheets here either. The last number is the length … that one I figured out on my own. 

By the time I sort of knew what I wanted to order, I could have driven to Home Depot and back two times! 

… The lengthy process was just preparing me for when I pick up my purchase, realize I need a different size and have to do it all over again … plus have to learn how to do a return via curbside drop off. 

Here’s the thing: During this time of isolation there are lots of church curbside services available to us. We can tune in and pick up a message, a talk, or a devotional here and there. But unless you open up your own Bible, you can’t really compare what you are hearing with what God is really saying. Make sure you show up online with a Bible; don’t take someone’s word for it. Compare what the Bible says to what the online service is offering and get the right message with no returns. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Have you been engaging online with your Bible or without it? Leave your comments and questions below.