Help a Bradley Out

As it turns out, the local self-service car wash has the new convenience of not needing quarters. You can now swipe a debit or credit card and the car wash will automatically charge your card while you wash. The process is quite simple, and only requires a few steps:
1. Swipe card.
2. Wash car.
3. Push stop button.

Apparently, two steps was all "Bradley" could remember, because Saturday when I pulled into the car wash port, and got ready to input my quarters, I saw this on the screen of the car wash card reader:
"Thank you, Bradley. Current time: 11:33, current charge $7.47. Hit "Stop" to end wash."
Poor, hapless Bradley had driven off without ending his wash, and in doing so had left his card with a continuous, growing charge. And so I was suddenly faced with an incredibly difficult dilemma: should I hit "stop" for Bradley?

The dilemma here was not one of whether or not I should freeload a car wash off Bradley. I really don't sell my morality for a $2.75 car wash. The dilemma was exactly what I should do to help Bradley the most. I could immediately terminate his car wash, ending the charges to his card before they hit 8 bucks. Chances are, Bradley would never even notice the anomaly on his monthly statement of a few dollars more than the typical car wash. Which means the next time Bradley came and gave his car a bath...he might forget to hit "Stop" again. By helping him now, I might be just hurting him later.
Or...I could let the charges continue to accrue. Maybe an 8 dollar car wash wouldn't get his attention...but surely a 30 dollar one would! If I let Bradley's charge grow, and it bit him later, he might come storming back to the car wash demanding to know why he was overcharged! Then, in embarassment, he'd be told that "3. Push Stop Button" is an essential part of the car wash protocol, and learn his lesson. From that day on, Bradley would never forget the lesson to read the instructions at the car wash card reader carefully. By letting Bradley get the stinging lesson now in the form of a high charge...I could save him heartache later.

And so for a few seconds I sat there, trying to decide what form of help Bradley needed.

Then, as I watched the charge tick up to $7.51, I remembered that I am not the only person on earth who can help Bradley. If I help him now, he may not learn a hard lesson about reading the instructions. But still, the possibility exists: just as I bail out Bradley now, the next time he gets a car wash and forgets to hit stop, there will be another person behind him in line who will hit stop for him. And that is what it means to be a Christian. You do what you can to help a Bradley out. And then you pray that other people will help Bradley out too.


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