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Sidetracked

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I put in half a day of work on Wednesday before realizing (when a concerned neighbor came over) that my beloved 1993 Honda Civic had been attacked in our own driveway while we slept. The driver’s window lay in small glass crumbs and the center of the dashboard, or what was left of it, was scattered in small forlorn grey pieces on the floor of the car. The prize–a modest CD player–had been ripped from the car like a tree uprooted by a tornado, leaving a large, ragged hole.

I have now invested countless hours talking to insurance adjusters, mechanics, body shop specialists, radio sales people, receptionists, and people who pick up phones when receptionists aren’t around. I went past my $500 deductible with the first visit (to get a new driver’s window), and I’m sure that was just the beginning.

I have cried, and I have tried to laugh, and I have worked to get the car repaired, and I have worked to forget about all this tsuris so I could do other things that make me happy, such as school and work and sprawling on the couch to read the New Yorker while happily worrying a fingernail. But I will say a special prayer this Sunday. I will pray that whoever did this will someday become someone else, someone who doesn’t steal other people’s things, someone who will someday help people. Someone as respectful of communities and individuals as I hope I am.

I’ll try to get my blog reviews done tomorrow, if the squeeze between my work schedule and the many trips to mechanics doesn’t rule it out.

It’s not the worst thing in the world. I’ve been to those places, and in the end, this merely is an expensive nuisance. (Further proof that God believes I can get by with a 19″ TV for now.) But how easy it is to get sidetracked, and how hard–and how necessary–to get back on course.

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