Today concludes February. The short month. The month that can never quite make it to 30 days. The month that falls short.

So, in honor of this, the last day of the short month, I have a sad tale of falling short.

You see, I didn't PLAN on falling short. In fact, my plan was brilliant. As some of you know, we bought a MAC computer this year. Well, we tried to take advantage of having relatives in Delaware, land of the "zero" sales tax. By buying the computer online and having it shipped to Delaware, we saved about a hundred bucks in sales tax. Missionaries are always looking for a way to save a dime, and so we planned for my mom and step-dad to get the computer from my aunt and uncle in Delaware and bring it out to California in March. It was a good plan. Really. It was.

That is, it was a good plan until three blizzards fell in the Mid-Atlantic states in February, the most collective snowfall in modern history. Suffice it to say, that little travel happened between PA and DE during the month, and the computer remained snowbound in the "First State."

So, we resorted to Plan B. My uncle shipped the computer to us this week, and once the boxes and postage and insurance was tallied, the figure came to more than a hundred dollars. The good news is we got the computer, and it's all in one piece.

And I guess the bad news goes without saying. Sometimes trying to be smart just doesn't work out. Good bye February, good bye snow (hopefully), and good bye futile attempts at saving a nickel.