The Banner Star


This is the story of a little lost star and how it found a home of its own in a most unexpected way.

 As virtual sawdust flew and virtual hammers banged building a new Internet store, it was discovered that the carefully crafted Phoenix banner did not fit the specifications very well. It had become blurry and pixelated. Time to give the designer a call for help. Little did I know that this would open the door to a little bit of magic.

Help was quickly available from Debby (www.PrincessGifts7.com), who had done such a marvelous job working with me to design my original banner and avatar. She made a few changes (I’m absolutely sure she has a magic wand that she simply waves!) and we were ready to show off the new storefront.

Yet, something was just a little different. Something was not quite right. Friends and I looked at the original banner, compared it to the new. It was such a tiny change that it is no wonder it was missed at first. The comma after “there” had become a semi-colon. Easy enough to fix, except this is where this very simple story took a slight turn when it turned out that we didn’t have a semi-colon after all.

When Debby started to change the semi-colon back into a comma, she discovered a little piece of wonder had wandered into the picture. Because what we had, after all, was a tiny, sparkling star who had hidden just above a comma.

Of all of the places that tiny star could have hidden on the entire banner, there it was, in the perfect hiding place: at the top of a comma to make a semi-colon.

It turns out that Debby had been working on another banner just prior to mine and it had a night sky with stars scattered across it. When she finished, she didn’t see the tiny star that stayed behind, somehow missing deletion. The tiny star gently sparkled on her computer canvas and waited until it could hitchhike out on my banner!

When Debby told me that she could delete the star, it seemed wrong somehow to erase something that was simply lost and looking for a home. So I told Debby that if she could find it an appropriate place on the banner, I’d like to keep the little guy. After all, it only seemed right somehow. Everyone has a time when they are lost and hoping to find home.

And so, Debby did find the little star a home. He grew some in the move and is much easier to see, but he is there now, shining on the Phoenix banner in the most appropriate of places.