We All Love Mondays

The first day of my last week of work left me dizzy with a splitting headache and a scheduled doctor's appointment. It left the other person with a crushed car.

Many of us were raised with our parents shouting an optimistic, "Make good decisions!" to us as we ran off to school or work or a get-together. A casually dressed twenty-something pedestrian did not heed his mother's age-old advice this morning as he ran into the street. No crosswalk. No "look left, then right, then left". And no apology after witnessing an accident caused by his own mistake.

I see it in slow-motion. I am coasting along at a safe 25mph, talking (responsibly) on the phone with my mom, when this man sets off my peripheral-vision-alarm. In the matter of a second, I register that, if I keep driving at my rate and he keeps jogging illegally across the street at his rate, we will collide.

I slam on my breaks.

He skids to a halt.

As I lift my hand to wave him on, his eyes look past my car and widen like a startled cartoon-character.

My thoughts of, Why isn't he crossing now that I stopped? are interrupted by a splitting screech of tires. Next thing I know, my cell-phone is flying out of my hand, my head indents the front of my chair, and I come to a harsh stop with my hair whipped across my face.

Collisions in real life don't sound like the car collisions in movies. Instead of high-pitched crunching noises it sounds more like a box of metal at war with a boulder--deep, like a bass at a rock concert mixed with a sledgehammer on your front door.

We pull over. I shout, shaken, to Mom that I got hit and I'll call her back. When I get out of the car, all I see is God's giant hand releasing my vehichle. He nudges me under the chin, and whispers "I'm with you."

My Jeep doesn't have a single dime-sized dent. The other SUV looks like shrink-wrapped metal, spewing automobile liquid like a hundred punctured hoses. A few phone calls, exchanged information, some words with the KCPD, and a tow-truck later, we go our separate ways. I drive to work an hour late--shaken and sore, but very aware of the impenetrable wall my God creates when He's protecting His own.