Know Your Limitations

Working out of my territory is not without its challenges. Consider finding a motel and decent places to eat when you’re four-hundred fifty miles from home, have never been at that location before, and your coworkers are not staying in the same town as you are. And, being on the eastern side of the Central Standard Time zone means it’s dark way earlier than you expect, so finding your way around at night in an unfamiliar environment has its own set of perils.

While the foregoing reasons are sufficient for illustrating my point, they pale in comparison to a challenge I stumbled onto today. I am, by nature, curious about how things work and consider it a challenge to fix anything that needs fixing. Couple this with my problem-solving brain and most anything can happen.

The Florida retailer I’m working with this week owns a family business. He and his wife and their son successfully manage their modest IGA supermarket and are “doing well.” They’re in the process of adding gas pumps on the parking lot of the supermarket, which of itself can top more than a half-million dollars in startup costs. The RV that they drove to Mississippi earlier this year to meet me at one of my fuel retailers is more than modest. By my standards, they’re wealthy, but they don’t flaunt it. They dress modestly and except for some stone-heavy rings, you’d think they’re just regular folks.

My coworker and I were to join the owners of the supermarket for lunch, and, thinking it was later than it was, the wife asked us, “When do y’all want to eat, eleven, eleven-thirty or twelve?”

I thought it a strange question as it wasn’t even ten o’clock.

“What time is it?” she asked. “I haven’t changed my watch back off daylight saving time. I need to, but I can’t get the stem pulled out to change the time.”

“SuperWayne” hearing a damsel in distress, responded, “Let me give it a try.”

She extended her arm, and I wedged a fingernail behind the stem, but nothing budged.

“Here, let me take it off,” she offered.

She unbuckled the gold-link band and slipped the watch off her wrist.

Again, I wedged a nail between the watch and the stem and pried, to no avail. Thinking I would only break a nail if I added more pressure, I reached for my pocket knife. I gently slid the blade into the same area where my fingernails had failed and applied a little outward pressure.

I remember thinking, “I’d hate to break the stem.”

Simultaneously, my bifocals focused squarely on the brand name on the face of the watch. It read ROLEX.

“Oh, Lord, thank you for stopping my reckless behavior,” I prayed or maybe I didn’t, but I should have.

I, humbly, handed the watch to her, stating, “I recommend you take this to a jeweler and let him get the stem pulled out. I don’t want to break anything.”

Friends, that’s the only time in my life I’ve held a genuine Rolex in my hands, and I’m truly thankful I didn’t damage it. On my salary, there’s no place in the family budget for Rolex repairs.
This afternoon, her husband was in the store and she mentioned her timepiece problem to him. He quickly fixed it. It seems he, too, has a Rolex.

“You have to turn the stem backwards,” he explained. “That unlocks it, and it pops out so you can reset the time. You just have to remember to lock it back afterwards. Not doing so is how I got water into mine.”

SuperWayne, Superman, and other Super Men, know their limitations. And, it is how they handle those limitations that make them SUPER.