The kids have been looking forward to this day since Christmas when they got spending money and gift cards. It's called, let's go shopping for dad's birthday/ buy ourselves whatever we want day YAAAAAYYYY!!! So I started devising a plan to leave the house. It began with slave driving the children to clean and ended with us in the car 3 hours later. Success! Well, sort of. I realized that I had made plans for later that evening and due to my late start in the day would probably end up disappointing a friend. Strike one for things that didn't obey me.... time refused to stretch out and provide a few more hours for this day. Boo. I just want to do ALL the fun things.
So were in the car driving, chatting, planning, and plotting. Then I drove right past the bank.... Strike two. My brain didn't obey me by remembering to stop there. No problem, we just went to a different one further down the highway. The teenager went in and cashed her checks like a boss, and we were on our way to shop mania.
It is at this point of the story I choose to reveal to you the added stress of that moment. I was driving the vehicle with the manual transmission. This is tricky for me since I primarily drive a big 4x4 SUV that does everything for me. So, when I drive the tiny car I am extra careful. With great caution I nosed the little car out into my lane when a grey Honda flew by at around 30+ mph nearly murdering my children.... well, that's where my head went. Strike three, my right foot disobeyed me by plunging to the floor and following after the woman making sure she new I was not pleased with her almost destroying my family. I wanted to know where it was that she needed to get to so fast that was worth risking our lives. I followed her for 3 blocks to the main stretch of Pt. Fosdick drive, and while I may have called her an idiot, screams didn't leave my lips, and the bird did not greet her as I drove by. Also, there may have been a death stare...I um, don't remember. It turns out she was in a hurry to get to an apartment complex. No, I didn't go all Terminator 2 on her or follow her to her house, but I kind of wanted to. I may have hoped that her apartment was on fire, but only for a second.
Was my reaction wrong? Well, sort of. I didn't terrify my kids by my driving... truthfully it's not like I followed her by speeding however, I wanted to be sure she understood that I was angry and that she was stupid for driving nascar through the parking lot of a grocery store. When the red haze began to lift from my vision I felt a bit bad and wished it never happened. See, i'm an empathy person and even after someone does something like that I begin to try and empathize with their situation. Who knows what was really going on in her day that made her feel like speeding like that? Maybe she was insecurely trying to look like an awesome race car driver or maybe she was really upset by someone who hurt her. I have to believe it was something like that because the alternative is that she was just being really careless and that's so yick.... how's that for a grown up word.
Anyway, it opened up a great conversation with my girls about defensive driving and we dissected the event all the way to the mall. Where Strike four happened.... Starbucks did not obey me by having egg nog. Followed by Strike five which was Verizon Wireless disobeying me by not giving me the phone I wanted to buy my husband for his birthday, but it all worked out in the end. The girls and I had a great meal together, laughed and talked and shopped til we dropped and found some amazing gifts to celebrate their outstanding father.
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