I'm starting to believe that I am the luckiest person on the planet. I mean, there's Travis. My most patient Travis who is, in my not-so-humble opinion, one of the truly great men in this world. It's not until you really get to know a person that you can determine if they are great or just famous, smart or powerful. Travis may not be famous and people outside of his sphere of influence will likely never know his greatness, but mark my words-he is a great man.
And there are my kids who are undoubtably THE most brilliant and talented kids in the ENTIRE world!
But I also have a knack for forgetting my purse in various places and not having a single thing stolen.
I have been known to leave my purse just about everywhere, even in places like Burger King in a bad part of South Sacramento. And I don't mean just getting to the door and realizing I left it on the seat. No, I mean driving down the road for 10 minutes or so and realizing that I left it out in plain view in a fast-food restaurant in a bad part of town...and having to tell Travis we have to turn around...and then come back and seeing the purse just sitting there, exactly the way I left it.
Or leaving my wallet in Borders Bookstore, again in plain view, in the back of the store where every chair is taken with people reading books they don't intend to buy (or am I the only one who does that?) and then having the store manager call me the next morning, letting me know that someone turned in my wallet.
In both of these cases, not a single thing was stolen. In fact, in every instance where I have forgotton my purse, I have never had so much as a dollar or empty gum wrapper stolen. No, not even a piece of lint. Shocking, I know. Lint is in such high demand.
But the instance that makes me feel TRULY lucky is the time when I left it on top of my car.
Oh, yes, I did! Some may leave coffee, others babies, but I left my purse up there. I thought for sure that all the people honking and waving at me were mad about the way I was driving, though I couldn't figure out why. And of course, there's no way I'm going to actually look at one of these people because I don't care to actually SEE the bird and I don't really like reading lips, especially when I know that the words I'll be reading won't be family-friendly!
No, I just kept my eyes straight ahead and drove on.
We lived out near the country then. Oh, how I miss it! A mere 5 minutes down the road took us to rice fields and back roads that bumped worse than turbulence on a small aircraft in a lightning storm. Actually, driving down those roads was a lot like playing a video game. You had to drive fast (that's an unspoken rule about back roads), avoid pot holes the size of the Grand Canyon, and dodge the suicidal pheasants. You earned points by either missing the stupid birds or hitting them, depending on which version of the game you played.
I added another component to the game and that was balancing a purse on top of your car while driving fast, avoiding pot holes, and dodging suicidal pheasants. And MAN I did good because the purse stayed on top of my car the entire time!
At some point I came home and as the night wore on, I began to look for my purse.
*GASP* "Honey, where's my purse??!!!???"
"(sigh) I don't know, Rachael. Did you have money in it?"
"No."
"Jewelry?"
"No."
"Credit cards?"
"Yes! But Honey, MY LIPSTICK WAS IN THERE!!!"
Travis didn't care so much about the lipstick, but he was rather concerned about the credit cards. Ok, the lipstick wasn't the most important thing to me, either, but I do admit that I was beginning to wonder what I was going to do in the morning without my favorite shade of Mary Kay lip color!
So, at this point, do we call the credit card companies or do we figure that my purse will show up just like it has every other time? Has my luck worn out or will I discover that it was on the kitchen table the whole time and we missed it all 570 searches around the house?
I don't remember if we canceled the credit cards or not. That's a lot of work when you're as lucky as me and the purse always shows up. But I do remember that Travis wasn't all that happy when we went to bed that night and I wasn't sleeping well, as I was simply so worried about my lipstick.
The phone rang.
It's 2am and the phone is ringing.
You know what that means...
and you wonder-
"Oh, no. Who died?"
Travis answered.
"Hey, I'm sorry to call so late, but is there a Rachael there?"
(Spoken like a protective husband) "Who's this?"
"John (pick your own name, I don't remember it). Does a Rachael live there?"
"What do you want?"
"Well, my friend Shawn (again, pick your own name) and I were...ummm...just-like, well, hanging out and stuff and we were driving down the highway and we found this purse."
The look of utter amazement and relief and bewilderment on Travis' face was priceless.
I, on the other hand, am still wondering who died.
"Yeah," John continued, "it's kind of messed up and all the stuff fell out of it..."
What he said next convinced me that I was indeed THE luckiest person on the planet
"...but we stopped and picked it all up.
"It was all over the side of the road for like 200 feet, but we tried to get everything we could, then we went to my buddie's house and called you."
"Okkkkkkkk?" Was Travis' reply.
"So, uh, do you want it?"
Psh! Of course! Travis made the arrangements. What they were, I don't remember at all. But what I do remember is that when I got the purse and looked inside IT WAS ALLLLLLLL THERE! Every credit card, every business card, every bit of make up-yes, even the lipstick- was all there. Well, minus a few pieces of lint. But there WERE some weeds, so that was a bonus. (weedS. plural, not the stuff you smoke!)
Can you believe it? A couple of kids not only saw a purse on the side of a small town highway in the middle of the night, but stopped, and what's more, spent a good part of their night collecting the items of this purse with nothing but a flashlight! Not to mention the fact that they were honest enough to return it!
I am THE luckiest person on the planet!
WOW! That is amazing!
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