Blunders and
Blessings
It’s about a five hour drive from Nashville to Cincinnati,
Ohio and we wanted to stop in Louisville, Kentucky to see a friend. By leaving
at 8:30 a.m. which is 9:30 eastern time we could stop for a quick lunch and be
at our friends house by l:30 p.m. At least that was the plan.
We had
driven almost twenty miles when I decided to get something out of our overnight
bag.
“Did you
put the bag in the trunk,” I asked.
“No, I
thought you got the bag. You didn’t get the bag? You had me get books and I had
them in my hands.”
“We have to
go back,” I said. “Our meds are in the bag.” We could buy other stuff, but we
have to have our meds.”
“Crap,” he
said as we circled the loop and headed back home.
He ran up
the stairs, grabbed the apples from the fruit bowl, the bag and hurried back to
the car.
“We’ll be
fine,” I said. “We can skip lunch and still make it.” And sure enough with
driving over the speed limit and eating our apples we arrived only a few
minutes late. It was a fun short visit because our friend had to pick up his
grandson from school. That was fine. We needed to be on our way to Cincinnati.
“We’re
going to get caught in the afternoon traffic,” I said.
“It’s o.k.
We’re not on a schedule,” he said. “We know where we’re going. We stay at the
same place every six months.”
The clouds
were mounting, getting darker by the minute.
“I hope the
tornados I heard about on the news are not heading this way,” I said.
The wind
blew and rain came down—so hard we would have had to stop had we not been
stopped already in the traffic. But then the most beautiful thing happened.
Double rainbows arched across the sky ahead of us as if to promise a safe
passage. The colors were sharp and wide and the glow shimmered into the trees
on the horizon.
“I wonder
if our hotel will have me as the ‘guest of the day,’ I said.
“I wouldn’t
think so. You have already had that honor twice,” he said.
When we
arrived at our hotel my name wasn’t on the marquee as it had been in the past. That special person gets an upfront parking
place and other little amenities such as cookies, etc. I kidded the desk clerk
wondering why I wasn’t the special person this time and she said “I’m sorry,
but I will make sure you get free breakfast in the morning.” That was really
nice and I went to my room feeling special anyway even if my name wasn’t up in
lights.
The next
morning while he was in a meeting, I watched the Royal Wedding. That was a
blessing because we could have been on the road. However, I guess it wouldn’t
have mattered because I did get to see it later over and over again. He was out
of his meeting about the time the wedding was over and we headed home.
“Do you smell
rubber?” he asked. “This car is pulling to the left. I have to take it in for
an alignment when we get home.”
“I do smell
rubber, you should get over in the right lane just in case,” I said.
We drove
another seventy-five miles, forgot about smelling rubber and staying in the
right lane when all of a sudden the wheel began to whop and it was hard to
control the steering. He managed to cross traffic and finally bring the car to
a halt on the right shoulder. The tire was shredded. Lucky we had a spare. But
with traffic coming toward us at eighty miles an hour and limited room for
changing a tire it appeared to me he was in extreme danger. I walked up the
side of the interstate and began motioning traffic to move over. Can you
believe it?—most of them did. One of them even pulled off in front of us to
help. Then out of no where the emergency truck came to guard our backside. We
were on the road in no time, arriving home safe and sound. Once again our blunder was turned into a
blessing.
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