Wrestling With Trust in a Shady Alley

Yesterday at lunch, TJ and I decided to buy tickets to last night's Chicago Cubs game. After the conference concluded, we headed straight toward Wrigleyville. The traffic was brutal, so what we believed would be plenty of time available before the game got squeezed. Once we arrived, we had a heck of a time finding parking. It was an absolute mess!

Then, we found our beacon of hope. A man was standing on the street with a sign that read, "Parking: $30." Just what we needed! He waved us down a shady-looking alley and eventually to a shady-looking garage. He pointed at the garage and said, "Just back it in here." TJ and I looked at each other, both nervous about what was happening. We apologized to the man and told him we would find alternate arrangements. As we headed back out of the alley, we recognized two things: 1) we were running out of time, and 2) maybe we just needed to trust him.

We put the car in reverse and headed back to the shady-looking garage in the shady-looking alley. We nervously parked the car and told him we changed our mind. He only accepted cash, but we only had $10 on us....far short of his $30 fee. "That's ok, you can just bring it when you come back!" Of course he's ok with us not paying him.....the parts he's about to strip from my car are worth several grand!

He said he wouldn't be around later in the night....he has to go to work. No big deal, however. "You can just put the money under this bucket when you leave," as he pointed to some construction materials near the front of the garage. Let me get this straight. We're leaving our car in a stranger's shady-looking garage, he doesn't care that we don't pay him right away, and he won't even be around when we return to ensure we actually do pay him? "I trust you guys. I hope you have fun at the game." Wow, he's definitely stealing our car.

Fast forward four hours. TJ and I had a memorable time together and were ready to deal with whatever consequences we had coming for us. How do you think the story ends?

My car is there, right where we left it. The man is nowhere to be found (as he foreshadowed). It's just us, my car, and this shady-looking garage in a now pitch-black shady-looking alley.

We didn't trust him, but he trusted us. He had no reason to trust us. He could have told us to leave. He could have forced our hand. But he didn't. He trusted. He showed us grace. We're glad that we (eventually) trusted him as well. We didn't have a pen/paper to write him a thank you note, so we threw in an extra $10 under the bucket as a gesture for his gesture.

That man taught us a valuable lesson. Trust. Grace. Generosity.