No Big Deal

So, you know how when life is just going along and you find the little irritants of the days just grinding you down? It's been a week like that for us here. The dog needed to have emergency surgery, but only on an ear. She has to wear one of those delightful dog collars so that she cannot reach her ear to scratch at it and get to the drain in her ear. Annoying as all get out, but not really all that bad.

The humans in the house both got the flu on the same day and were dying in concert and of no help to one another. Although it would have been nice to have some sort of support system, neither of us actually died, no matter what we prayed for.

I was forced to go out on an errand. I like listening to books on CD in the car. I usually have two books going, one in the car and one in the house. But my one in the house was completed, so I brought in the one from the car. And I didn't want to have to listen to the same stuff over again and I thought there was only a little more than one five-minute track left to listen to before a new CD would be needed.

Instead it was three and a half tracks, but I had my breakfast and did the dishes and then simply sat and listened to it finish the CD. It put me on the road to the post office a little later, but time is my friend and what did it really matter? I grabbed the next CD and got in the car and off I went on a small trip to the post office.

As I turned onto the main road, I saw black smoke coming from ground level, rising for a distance, and then being caught in a breeze and dissipating. The smoke looked oily and menacing. After a minute or so, the black smoke turned into a grayer smoke, then whiter, then white, and then it ceased to exist.

By that time I was close enough to see the emergency vehicles. There were fire trucks and cars and police cars at the scene. As I pulled along side of what had once been a car, I could see nothing but a charred and blackened frame. On the other side of the road was a stunned woman carrying a toddler and holding the hand of a pre-schooler as they walked toward a place with a phone.

She was stunned and not devastated, so I assume the burnt wreck was hers, but that she and her children were safe. I couldn't see anything that looked like people may have been trapped in the car. The emergency response teams were not doing anything that would lead one to believe that anything more than damaged property was at stake.

So I went on my way, secure in my little world of petty annoyances. Happy that my life doesn't include cars burning up around me as I frantically get my children away from any flames.

Perhaps the woman and her children will have nightmares from the event. Perhaps they will, instead, be amazed and grateful that they were not trapped in the car. I am grateful that I don't even have to pick which response as I have my car alive and well and tucked safely inside my garage.