The other day a lady used her horn to voice her opinion of my driving. If she had seen the situation from behind my steering wheel she would have seen me avoid an accident under a red light at a busy intersection. I moved into the other lane which unfortunately disappeared after a hundred yards or so onto the interstate. My only choices were to stop or merge. I chose merge, thus the unfortunate honking incident. I didn't cut her off, by the time I was in her lane traffic was moving again. It was just that she would have preferred I stay in the back of the line where she thought I belonged, under that red light with cars and trucks zooming by at ridiculous speeds.
I wanted to pull the honker over in Barney Fife fashion and give her a piece of my mind. But, I had to remember, she could not see the possible accident I was about to cause...she just saw that I merged in front of her. I doubt she even had to brake, I may have made her one second later than she already was. I was actually only in front of her for maybe half a minute. I turned into McDonalds. She sped on her way.
We went on an adventure this past weekend with almost our whole circus. We drove to North Atlanta to float on innertubes down a part of the Chattahoochie. It was great fun, but I noticed something while we were there. People don't like to wait. I'm not even sure that waiting was the problem, I almost think just being behind the next group was what got blood boiling. We squeaked in by the skin of our teeth. The family waiting in line in front of us turned and told my daughter they were already sold out of innertubes for the day. We stood there looking at each other for a minute then I voiced what she was thinking, "Let's beg!"
She assured me she could handle it and vanished into the sea of grumbling, whining, cussing patrons emptying out of the ticket area.
It reminded me of Dorothy, when she got to Oz, and was first turned away. She could handle the disappointment for herself but, dang it, she was not going to disappoint her fellow adventurers.
My daughter went to the window and found a sympathetic ear. She told the lady she had been trying to make reservations for three days and could not get an answer, then she told her she had talked to her earlier in the day, and as nicely as anyone possibly could she told her we had driven two and a half hours with children to float down this river and by golly...well, she didn't really go that far. The lady in the window told us we could be the last group of the day.
So, we sat and waited. We were so thankful we were "in' we didn't dare complain that it was hot or there were no real bathrooms. We all kept our attitudes in check knowing we would probably be the very last people on the bus with "$10 Tubes" painted on the sides, that hauled people to a drop off spot. After a while we started noticing other groups getting impatient. One dad puffed out his chest in front of his kids and demanded to go next or get a refund. Another group's designated complainer was a young woman in smart expensive sunglasses. She held a clipboard and wore wedge heeled flip-flops, tapping her foot as she interigated the little teenage worker with "Event Staff" on her t-shirt. It was not so much that it took so long.It was just the anticipation of being next. I think they felt they were being merged in on. I rarely care if I am first at anything. I probably get this from living with a mild mannered man for thirty years. His children are pretty much the same. We are all just glad to be there.
It was Jesus who said, "The first shall be last and the last be first", a good thought anytime, but especially if traffic calls for merging.
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