A funny thing happen on the way to pick up my truck..........................

I have my truck back again, and the repair was (only) $700.00. Considering that the guy was talking potential thousands I feel blessed. The final amount was only a $100.00 over what we had for the trip, so I don't buy any shoes this month (pick yourself up off the floor Random... I will be fine!), and we are golden. But on to the story...

Having finished the book A New Earth, I have been trying hard to be "in the moment," "live the present." I must have a ways to go yet. My youngest got a speeding ticket earlier in the week. I know she told me of the details, but I didn't really pay attention to them. On the way to pick up the truck, yours truly was also using her lead foot and was stopped by Mr. "Officer Friendly" himself. I sat in the car REFUSING to give into the self directed anger and stupidity of the moment. If he wrote fast, I could still get the truck and make it to the coffee place to pick up beans before they close. Coffee is a necessity in our house. With four "heavy drinkers (of coffee of course), we are always running out of coffee (and toilet paper, but that is another story).

See, I have gotten over speeding tickets years ago. I consider myself a safe driver (don't we all?). I wasn't going 110, he had me at 13 miles over, on a country road, no other cars in site (Queen of justification when it comes to breaking the law). Remember the line in the song, "I can't drive fifty-five?" I speed sometimes. For every time I get caught, there are probably hundreds of times I have "gotten away with it." Since I am still running a good average I am not going to let it ruin my day. After all, someone had to help nice officer friendly reach his quota for the month. This month I took my turn. I will admit my patience was running a little thin by the time he got the written ticket to the car. As he was explaining the procedure in his friendliest voice (one of these times I REALLY and going to tell one of them I don't need their charity, just write the damn thing for the full-on over speed, instead of GENEROUSLY writing it for ONLY five miles over, blah, blah, blah...), I cut him off with a curt, "I've done this before," took the ticket out of his hand and started the car to his patronizing words of, "Drive safely now." I told my youngest if I had more time I would totally speed out of there just to show him I don't give a rat's ass about the ticket, but since I don't... OH! YA! I have a ways to go with all this Zen stuff!

So, we continue our drive down the road only nothing looks familiar. This is the same road I broke down on (was it last week or two weeks ago) and I drive it often. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out it didn't look familar because I had missed the road I wanted to turn on so my mind was looking for those landmarks. Back tracking, the silly road was BEFORE where I had my stand-off with the law (another old song, "I fought the law and the law won!"). Had I been in the moment instead of blabbing off about the identity thief I (potentially) could have avoided the entire matter. My youngest then reminds me that her experience was exactly the same, she missed her turn and was pulled over past that point so also could also have avoided her experience (different county, different cop, two days prior). How's that for mother daughter bonding?

Totally spoiled beyond belief, we presented our tickets to (my) Mister yesterday (she also gave him a check out of her account) so he could call on them and get the fines in the mail. I told him of my desire to ask for the full speed charges and he turned a little green. Have I told you that (my) Mister is THE MOST law abiding citizen I know? I promised to try and stop myself before actually doing it.

Not five minutes after (my) Mister informed me that the charge for my ticket was $110.00 I opened an e-mail to find I had been gifted the second level Reiki class which (of course) costs $110.00 EXACTLY! How can I act like such a brat and still get all these blessings??? Who's questioning? I'm not questioning... Only gratitude here.

Ya all drive safely now...