When It Rains It Pours

You know those days that seem so mundane all morning, all afternoon, and then all of a sudden, it's like a flash flood of events that pour down all over your day? This was last Friday for me.

Almost getting hit by a car will surely wake you up. I was walking out of a fairly uneventful day at the office, crossing the parking lot. I watched this guy in a white hatchback look just one way before pulling out of the row of parked cars to make sure no other cars were coming. He didn't think to look to his left, where I, unarmed with a car of my own--just exposed to the elements, was walking. Though I believe I noticed that he did not see me, I kept walking, which was not so smart on my end of course. And these would have been my last words had anything actually happened: "whoa. Whoa. WHOA Dude!".

He stopped just short of me--because I did a little hop-skip-jump-run to get out of his way. When he slammed the brakes he stopped so that I was looking into his driver's side window down at him. I saw his surprised and remorseful face, making wild hand gestures that somehow meant he was sorry--that he hadn't seen me. I waved him off, "it's okay" I said. I didn't want to have a long chat about it so I just kept walking, hoping I never run into him inside the building ever.

But, as I got into my car I felt the tears well up. My life had just been threatened. I had almost been hit by a car. This is what it feels like for life to so sharply reach out for you and miss. It was scary. Some people might respond to a situation like this one--when their life is so blatantly threatened--by opening the car door and punching that idiotic driver for being so stupid. But not me. I just wanted to be alone and cry.

I wiped the tears from my face, looked in the rear view mirror to make sure I wasn't all puffy eyed, and I made my way to Whole Foods to pick up some groceries. I was walking in to the entryway where all the carts are folded together in long steel lines, but this time the carts were all pushed from their corner and scattered amid the two automatic doors. The culprit: a woman trying to save a bird.

I asked her what she was doing. "There's a little bird stuck in here somewhere, and he keeps trying to get out and slamming up against the window here, and he's panting very hard. I've never heard a bird pant! And I think he might die if I don't get him out of here...And he's in these carts somewhere."

Personally, I didn't want to deal with a dead bird today--the way she made it sound, I thought the bird would already be all mangled and dying and hopeless--like when you find a young bird that's fallen from the nest and it's so sad, but there's really nothing you can do. I so badly wanted to say "poor thing" and walk on into the store, get my groceries and leave. But I couldn't. I helped her disentangle the carts from each other and find that silly bird, that was still very much alive and well. People looked at us like we were crazy--two crazy women in Whole Foods trying to save a bird--actually--I'm sure that happens all the time. After a few minutes I was able to keep the automatic doors open and the bird flew out on its own. We breathed a sigh of relief and the crazy woman and I went our separate ways.

Driving home, I was listening to NPR like usual--some program like All Things Considered or something on the lighter side when 5:30 hit and a voice announced "And now, the news". In a 30-second time slot I heard again about the plane that had crashed, the sad state of the economy, and a suicide bomber that had detonated among women and children. That's when I lost it. I lost it driving, which is a very bad thing to do because when tears are pouring out of your eyes, it's very difficult to watch the cars around you and that little yellow line in the road. But I was close enough to home that I just had to make one more right turn, wailing in my car, my heart plummeting to the floor...beyond the floor, to the center of the planet. I sat in the driveway and just cried and cried and cried. For almost getting hit by a car, for the little bird that I saved with a crazy woman, for the victims of the plane crash, the suicide bombing, all the people struggling with the economy.

I didn't feel much better by the time I wiped my eyes and got out of my car. I waved to my neighbor who was also just getting home from work, wishing I wasn't such a mess so that I could finally introduce myself, and hoping that from her vantage point she couldn't see my mascara smeared all over my face. I made it inside to my little apartment and concluded that I just need to stop watching and listening and reading the news. Not surprisingly, it has made me feel better.