Since patience seems like it could be something you can pattern into your psyche, I made the decision to try and practice it when I'd rather scream and rant. I figured it may not take completely but if I could knock my stress level down a notch or two, that could be considered a moral victory. I'm pretty sure God, having a great sense of humor, said "Yeah, right! Let's see how committed you really are!" and immediately tested my level of commitment within moments of me making that proclamation.
My daughter and I were in the car headed up to the grocery store to restock my pantry since my son has been eating us out of house and home. Driving around our city on a good day can be aggravating with our great diversity of horrendously bad drivers on the road, but during the holidays it seems like these people drive even worse (if that's even possible) and there seem to be lots more of them. When you combine these terrible drivers with all of the out-of-town drivers who don't know their way around, it's a recipe for serious aggravation and road rage.
So, as we were making our way down a multi-lane road, we kept having to go around drivers who were doing 25mph in 40mph+ speed zones. My jaw was set as I was determined to just go about my errand and not be cranky. Apparently I wasn't doing that great of a job controlling my aggravation since my daughter patted my hand and said "Hmmmm, there seem to be a lot of slow drivers out today Mom. We'll get there".
Not sure how many times I've said those last 3 words to my daughter when she's running full-tilt to get to something she's excited about, but it sure does stink having it spit back at you. I inhaled deeply and forced myself to relax. We finally made it to the stoplight where we turn right.......... and sitting smack-dab in front of me is an out-of-stater who is wanting to go straight....... in the right turn only lane.
Grrrrrrrrr!!!!! I started thinking "Christmas spirit........... Christmas spirit............ Christmas spirit.........". I guess I was thinking it so hard, I actually said it out loud. My daughter looked at me and started cracking up. She then leaned over and kissed my hand and started rubbing my shoulder as she said "That's right Mom! Smile and get the Christmas spirit! At some point the light will change and then somebody from the other lane will run him off the road as he tries to weasel his way in from the wrong lane. See! Happy place!".
Now she had me laughing since that was pretty darn close to what I was thinking! The light finally changed and as we (and 20 cars stuck behind us) turned right, we could hear the cars honking with great gusto at the person who had been in front of us as they did the bumper shuffle to see who would let the out-of-stater into their lane. We giggled to ourselves as we made our way up to the next stop light so we could turn into the grocery store. This time though we were turning left.
As the light changed and we started turning, out of nowhere the car from the middle lane decides that he needs to grocery shop and nearly side-swipes us in his zeal to replenish his milk and bread reserves. As I laid on my car's horn and expertly dodged this moron's vehicle, my daughter yells at the other driver "Hey! You can't turn from there! Can't you read?!"
Laughing hysterically, I looked over at my daughter and patted her hand as I said "Christmas spirit, dear! Christmas spirit!". She smiled broadly as she said "Not when it's on my side, Mom!"........
Christie Bielss
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