Monday on Tuesday...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe I'm trying too hard with the title. But, who cares? Today was one of those days when, as a Christian, I am spending a lot of energy trying to decide whether today is just one of "those days", or if God is trying to tell me something.

It all started...well, it all started last night, when I got really, really, really sleepy and went to bed. Shortly thereafter I became wide awake. I tossed, I turned. I tossed some more. I lay on my back. I lay on my stomach. I lay on my right side...then my left. I tied myself into the shape of a pretzel. I counted sheep. I counted bulldozers. But, no matter what I did, I could not go to sleep.

So, around 10:00, I heaved myself out of bed and moved it to the couch, where I felt around in the dark until I found the remote. Pushing the power button, I said to myself, "Let the channel flipping begin!" The channel flipping didn't end until after midnight, when I couldn't push the channel button any more and decided to move it to the computer, where I checked on my eBay auctions. I inherited an expensive watch from my grandfather, and, since the wife and I are house-hunting, I decided to listed it along with another vintage watch I own. That led me to think about all the cool "stuff" I could get with the money I make from the sale of the watches...

...until I got tired of that.

Back to bed I went, where I lay for another half-hour or so before finally sinking beneath the waves of sleep, where I had a series of violently bizarre dreams. Until the alarm went off at 6:00. I got out of bed and did my usual morning routine of stumbling around the bedroom trying to get ready for the day. It was considerably more difficult this morning due to my lack of sleep, but I eventually made it to work.

My patience was at an all-time low, which corresponded nicely with the onslaught of phone calls and emails I got. I felt completely exhausted and drained the entire day, as if I was in a fog. Food and drink tasted strange, and there was a haze around me, like I was covered in cheesecloth or something...

Until my wife called me and said she was broken down on the side of the interstate; that snapped me out of it. I leaped into "Husband-Protecting-His-Wife" mode and ran out of the office. During the high-speed drive to get to her, my tired brain was embroiled in a struggle with whether or not to get mad at God for "doing this to me". I don't think God sits in Heaven and chortles over our misfortune. On the contrary, I think everything happens for a reason from which we can benefit if we're willing to be patient. I just couldn't figure this out. What was God trying to tell me?

I mean, of the two vehicles I own, I would have expected my Ford Exploder (yes, I meant to call it an Exploder), whom I lovingly refer to as "Eleanor", to die first. I would have bet everything I own that my wife's Honda Civic, which has only 114,000 miles on it, wouldn't have bit the dust first. But, based on the wife's description of what happened, that's exactly what it sounded like. She talked of the car shaking, sputtering, lurching, clattering, and thumping. I convinced myself that the engine had thrown a rod or something.

So, I finally reached her car and made a death-defying u-turn in the median. Seriously, it was death-defying. You should have seen it! I was actually proud of my Eleanor. Anyway, I pulled up to the car, got out, and turned the key to my wife's Civic.

Vroooooom! Started right up. I mashed the accelerator. Vroooooom, vroooooom! Sounded like it always has: like a little four-cylinder. My wife and I stared at each other and shrugged.

I drove the car home, fully expecting the engine/transmission to fall out onto the road at any second, only to have the car run perfectly all the way home. The only quirk was that the ubiquitous "check engine" light won't go off.

So, now I'm home, typing this, still trying to figure out why everything that happened over the last 18-hours happened. My initial gut reaction is that the watches will sell. And I'll spend every cent on fixing the wife's car...

Hmm...