Maribel The Cashier

I was prepared for battle this afternoon. I had mentally rehearsed my lines. I knew the logic I was going to use in making my points. I was prepared for the inevitable objections and how to escalate the battle to the next level when necessary. And I had an ultimate trump card in my pocket.

You see, as I went to pick up my wife's van from the dealership, I knew that I was going to have to argue why I shouldn't have to pay for one of the charges on the bill. The air bag light had been coming on intermittently, and the mechanics wanted to charge about $150 for their diagnostics. The only problem is that even they couldn't figure out why at random times the dash would light up. They hypothesized that the culprit was a short in the switch that goes to the driver's side seat belt, but that would cost $400 and offered no guarantee that it would cure the problem.

Needless to say, I wasn't keen to the idea of shelling out a ton of cash for an ineffective diagnosis. I could have taken the van in town to my mechanic and had the codes pulled from the computer for free. But against my better judgment, I went back to the dealership after telling them a year ago that they would never get my business again, only because the car was still under warranty, and the transmission also seemed to be having trouble.

After a week of waiting and calls not being returned in a timely manner, I went into the dealership ready to make war, with nothing less than a total waiving of those diagnostic fees as my victory. When I first met the rep who had been handling my ticket, I turned my cell phone to record mode as a precautionary measure, in case I would be given the runaround. He led me into the cashier area and grabbed my paperwork. "Oh, great. Here it comes," I thought to myself.

He turned the pages and explained all of the repairs that were made to the transmission. He hit the highlights for the rest of the analysis of the van, and talked about what work they did. He also remembered to include my free oil change in the mix. Then, he turned to the payment statement.

$100 even. The warranty deductible only.

They waived the fee and agreed that since they couldn't figure out what caused the problem, I shouldn't have to pay it.

I couldn't believe it. I felt so elated and happy that they fixed the problem with the transmission, did the oil change, and were fair with the charges. My frustration and anticipation of conflict dissipated.

I went over to the cashier to pay the bill and started speaking to the young woman named Maribel. I noticed she had a large scar running from her neck down toward her chest and asked her about it. She said that she had a heart defect as a child and the doctors have sometimes cut that area to confirm that everything is working properly.

I gave a complete Gospel presentation to her, and she even asked me to stick around to ask a few more questions. She sounded genuinely concerned with her eternal salvation.

Now, had I remained in my state of anticipating a battle, I can't guarantee that that conversation would have happened that way. I doubt that opportunity would have happened that way at all. The only thing I can say is that it was a God thing.