I was thrilled today at school because I felt like I was coming out of a performance slump and if life is a mind game then today I was a charging Bishop instead of a checkmated King. In the very challenging language my classmates and I are trying to master we are regularly required to translate passages of literature or dialogue. There is a limited window of time we are given during which to accomplish this and just before noon today I entered the crowded computer lab with tremendous confidence about the dragon I was about to slay.
A pair of students appeared in the doorway just as I logged on and asked if anyone in the room owned the Nissan out in the parking lot, the one with the college decals from the two schools my children attended. I stood up half expecting one of them to say she hit my car as it popped out of its spot and the friend was there to corroborate how fast my car was parked at the time of impact but instead they both called out very sweet and concerned and upset that they just parked next to me and my window was smashed in and the glove compartment hanging open.
Out in the parking lot the passenger side of my car was littered with broken glass from the punched in window and I knew as soon as I looked into the gaping hole that my GPS was gone. I just recently blogged about my sultry little GPS with the British accent, the lovely Olivia with her fetching way of mispronouncing street names and chiding me about missed turns that prompted her to purr, “Recalculating…” Where had she gone? The police arrived and issued me a victim’s report number so The Gecko could process my claim and I drove over to the glass place as it started to rain. When I picked up speed trying to outrun the drops chunks of glass blew into my lap and crunched under my feet.
Husband was at meetings in the city after leaving his car with our mechanic for new brakes and we called each other serendipitously looking to be picked up, me at the glass place and him at the train station. But we were out of cars. Everyone we knew was at work or school so we each hoofed it home and later called a cab to take us to our vehicles. In the middle of a weekday a couple in the suburbs without an automobile is like a pint of Haagen-Dazs without a spoon.
Gecko covered the glass but not the GPS because it was mobile and not permanently installed. It had been my Hanukkah gift from Husband and I used it often because the word North means nothing to me. Over dinner we pondered who might have known I had a GPS in my glove compartment. The school parking lot is a busy place on a main street with lots of pedestrians and traffic. Did someone see me using it? Putting it away? Spot the detached windshield mount? Had the lot been cased or was it random? How odd that I was just talking about it right here with all of you, my valued readers. Many of whom I don’t really know. Do me a favor and come over here and sit down for a minute. I hope you don’t mind me asking but where were you this morning?
Daughter’s Featured Foto of street art today is self-explanatory.
beauty’s only street deep. your space has been invaded