Waiting on Trains

One thing I get to do is pick up Lindley from her day care. You must pick the munchkins up on time, or you have to pay exorbitant amounts to get the child out of day care detention, or they garnish your allowance, or they hold the family cat ransom, or something like that. Needless to say, my Type A personality makes sure I am on time.

On Thursday, I was stopped by a train that passes over the road to day care. I started to semi-panic because I was running exactly on time, and I began to fret that the train, although fast-moving, would make me late. What if the train took too long? How long was I going to be sitting waiting? Would Lindley be duct-taped to the light pole outside because Granny Lu was late? I decided to time the train, so I could make my excuses when I rushed in (or to the police officer who might stop me when I put the pedal to the medal to get to day care). As it turned out, the train took two minutes, and I picked up Lindley in plenty of time before the penalty phase began.

Friday became a repeat, although this time the train was travelling much slower. Again, I started getting anxious, because I already was a few minutes later than usual. Would the day care ladies give me dirty looks if I were late? Would they be sitting in their cars with the motors running, holding Lindley outside the windows? I thought of this while waiting again and decided to time the train. This time, the train took longer - two and a-half minutes. Again, I breezed in on time.

So what's the moral of this story? Maybe it's that sometimes the only reason things are big deals is because we only imagine them to be big deals. Maybe it's that sometimes time that seems interminable really isn't. Maybe it's that things happen for a reason - like being stuck by a train - and it's just to slow us down a bit. Maybe it's that the little stuff shouldn't be the big stuff. Maybe it's a reminder to chill out. Maybe it's none of these - it's just what happened to me this week.

But I will remember this - those trains only took a few minutes. I just had to wait them out.

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Things that make today great: J Alexanders lunch with Sam, Lynnette, and Lindley; making cootie catchers