A [Cherry] Ride (Sorta) XMas Tale

When I woke up on Christmas Eve I thought it would be nice to call friends in London that morning before my day got too busy and wish them a Merry Christmas. I realized that I'd left my phone in the car and Richard volunteered to go down to the street to get it. He came back a few minutes later and gently told me that the car had been broken into and the phone was gone.

I got my coat on and went down to see for myself. Someone had shattered the passenger side window of my car, reached in and took my cell phone. I couldn't fucking believe it. On Christmas Eve!

For a few minutes I was so angry I was shaking. I harbored fantasies of catching the asshole(s) in the act, while also holding in my hands a large, heavy iron monkey wrench (why a monkey wrench I'm not so sure but that's besides the point) and enjoying the feeling of said monkey wrench landing squarely into the skull of the perps.

But then something strange occurred a few minutes later as I prepared to help Richard clean out the car. I remembered something that had happened to me two weeks ago...

... My boss and I had driven out to Glendale Heights one afternoon for a client meeting. Along the way we had taken a wrong turn, became lost and were now about 15 minutes late. We were stopped at a busy intersection, about to make a left turn, and since we just got the green arrow, were about to make the turn. As this was happening a driver decided to run her red light and as she sped through the intersection she lost control of her car and came veering right towards us, missing our car head-on by literally a foot. Her car smashed into the car next to us and careened into the curb. It was like watching one of those new Jetta commercials where one moment your talking to your friend and the next a car blindsides you. I have no doubt that had we been just a foot further into the intersection we would have been hit by her 40 mph-speeding-car and I'd be (at a minimum) hospitalized.

But the really weird part of that incident is that we weren't even supposed to be at that intersection at that time anyway -- had we not got lost we would have already been at the client meeting and nowhere near that intersection. So did I witness this near-death experience for a reason? I dunno and try not to think about that stuff too much anyway. But there's a part of me that thinks this happened to make me realize how short life can be, and to appreciate the life I've got.

So as I walked back to the car with the vacuum cleaner, I decided to just Let It Go. Life is too short to get worked up about this stuff, and besides, it's Christmas Eve. There are millions of people on this Earth who have it worse off than I do. If this was to be my biggest problem that day, well then I think I've got it pretty good.

And as I processed this single liberating thought I actually smiled to myself. It felt good.

So here I am three days later. I've got a new phone (minus all my numbers, but I'll get them back) and the car is fixed. And in the grand scheme of things, I'm alive and healthy and alive to celebrate the Holiday Season. * (Besides, that phone sucked. It was one of those Motorola Razrs and I don't care what you say, those phones suck it. Hard.)

Happy New Year Everyone.

* However, if I ever DO catch those motherfuckers, for their sake I'd better not have a monkey wrench near.