Careful What You Ask For

As a teenager I learned the hard way that we must be careful what we ask for. At the time, I was an assistant manager at a local gift shop. One summer day, after a very long night of dealing with issues, I headed off to work. Having hardly slept and still frustrated from the night before, the last thing I wanted was to be at work.

Throughout the morning, I kept thinking how bad I wanted to go home. For display purposes that day, we placed a table of merchandise outside on the sidewalk. At one point I walked by and saw that it needed to be moved over a couple of inches. To correct it, I stepped out and pulled the table toward me. When I did, the table collapsed with the edge of it directly landing on my wrist.

When I looked down, my watch was sitting on the sidewalk. That’s strange, I thought. I leaned down, picked it up and went to put it back on. That’s when I saw the nice sized gaping hole on the top side of my wrist. Having cut perfectly through my nerves, it was painless. To have it stitched up, off to the emergency room I went. All day I had been wanting to leave work and I got my wish. After that, I’ve always been very careful of what I ask for.

That leads me to the interesting timing of yesterday’s post. I woke up irritated by having to go through another typical boring day. Thankfully, I quickly got over it and the day turned out to be rather good and enjoyable.

Then…

Last night I was driving home with my son. It was late and there was hardly anyone on the road. The nearest car could barely be seen in the distance, as its headlights were just topping the hill behind me. As we approached an intersection the light turned red. Naturally, I came to a stop. About 5 seconds later I looked in the rear view mirror and to my horror was a small sedan speeding toward me. There was nothing I could do, no where I could go.

Right before it hit me, the driver swerved into the other lane. Flying over the intersection and through the red light, I watched as the car fishtailed between two lanes. Before the light even turned green, the car was already almost out of sight. That told me that he must have been going at least 60 mph. My son said “he must be a ninja.” If so, he was a dumb ninja.

That sedan was flying. I never did catch another glimpse of it. We got home and as I was getting ready for bed, a thought hit me. Had that sedan crashed into the back of our car, I wouldn’t have been getting ready for bed. At the very least, we would have been in the hospital and that’s if we even made it there in the first place.

Instead of tucking my son in for the night, I could have been mourning for him. Instead of me getting ready for bed, I could have been lying in a morgue. As those thoughts were going through my mind, I thought back to my post yesterday morning. So what if some days are boring and uneventful? At least I have a day to enjoy and so does my son. He’s at school right now, living, breathing and having fun.

If that car had not moved when it did, today would have looked much different.

Lesson: Be careful what you ask for. You may just get it. Most importantly, be grateful for and cherish the day that you’ve been given.