"Julia Speaking. How May I Help You?"

No good deed goes unpunished, really. Truly.

So Terese called me in a panic the other day. "Where are you?"

I'm in the grocery store.  I was mindlessly roaming around the store trying to think what to make for dinner.

Where are YOU?

"I'm at work. I need to run over to church and play the piano for Mass soon but I don't have anyone to cover my phones for me here at the church office. Could you......?"

Sure. I'll come over.

"Great. I'll leave a note explaining things for you. You don't have to do anything but answer the phone. And it's only for thirty minutes then you can leave."

So I pointed my cart toward the nearest checkout stand and within minutes found myself sitting behind our church's office desk with nothing -- but NOTHING -- to do. The phone was boringly silent. There was nobody in the office except me. After playing solitaire on my phone for fifteen minutes, I decided that there certainly could be more productive things to do. Surely. Terese was just being too kind to ask me.

I decided to invent a few tasks for myself after I shamelessly pulled open one of her desk drawers and spied a stack of blue post-it-notes.

WELL, now. Post-its are for making useful information easily visible, I thought. I grabbed a pen and began writing useful and informational post-it notes such as:

Be Thankful For Your Friend Julia splat in the center of the computer screen
and
Ewwww. Used kleenex? Really?? next to a wad of tissue
and
It's Called Delusions of Grandeur on a framed certificate on which her name was printed prominently
and
An air freshener? Why?? next to an air freshener(...duh.)
and
Don't Forget To Add Julia's Birthday on the office calendar right next to all the saint's feast days
and...
and...and....
Dang. I realized that my half hour was up and I was expected to lock the office for the lunch hour and leave. There was no telling when Terese would be back and catch me blue-post-it-handed, so I reluctantly tucked what was left of the post-its back into the drawer, grabbed my purse, locked the door and left. As I drove home I thought of a zillion other very useful and extremely informational post-it notes that I could have left.

Wasn't that nice of me? Didn't I do an ENORMOUS favor for Terese? Aren't I just the best-est friend EVER?

Well. Apparently not. Since within minutes of arriving back home, this came into my email:

On official church email letterhead. One hundred fifty-five dollars? For one measly stack of post-its? Is this gratitude?! I think not.

Pfffft. No way, girlfriend. She's getting my half used stack of schnauzer sticky notes. So there. I'm sure everyone receiving an official church document would love to see a cute little schnauzer sticky attached.

Ok. They're actually not particularly attractive, I'll admit. Which is why I'm giving them away. 

I wonder when if I'll be asked to help out in the church office again? Gosh, there's plenty of other tasks that I could do.