Bishop's Storehouse

Tonight we went to the Bishop's Storehouse when we got an urgent message from the bishop, who said they were receiving a huge shipment that night and the only people there to unload were the somewhat elderly missionary couple from the cannery.
We were excited to help. For those not in the LDS lingo know, the Bishop's Storehouse is a warehouse of food, household items and other necessities made available to people in need (not just members of the LDS church). They are usually about the size of a 7-11, and look like a clean version of a ghetto 7-11. Bare metal racks fully stocked with the essentials (and some other stuff, like chocolate pudding and Christmas candy) and glaring flourescent lights, shopping carts and a big warehouse in the back with the rest of the stock.
We beat the delivery truck (an 18-wheeler) by a little bit, so Stellan went for a ride on the forklift. He was excited. When the truck arrived, he also loved watching it open, and observing the forklift unload pallet after pallet. But when it came time to start unloading the boxes from the pallet, Stellan and I were uncerimoniously dismissed. Apparently the guy in charge (older Hispanic man) did not approve of women doing any heavy lifting (even though my back is much better than Kevin's) and did not approve of children being present either. So we had to hang out in the office up front. We did get to tour the cannery next door, where community members can can their own food for storage and emergency preparedness.
Two hours later, Stellan was tired, I was still angry at being rejected from service just because I am Y-chromosome deficient, and Kevin's back was killing him. The truck was gone, the pallets were empty and we're pretty sure that hundreds of people will have a better Thanksgiving because of the Bishop's Storehouse. (Did I mention Kevin spent some time shuffling turkeys in the walk-in freezer?)