One day I was leaving for a trip to Spain and on the way to the airport I needed to stop for gas. As I got out of the car I thought, “Aha! Today I will be wise and bring my whole wallet with me.” In the past I would just grab my credit card to pay and the card would inevitably end up forgotten in my pocket and fall down into the crevasses of my car. So today I was being wise...I brought the whole wallet. As I was filling up on gas I put the card back into my wallet and finished pumping. By the time I was done I drove away from the station, thinking how smart I was to not lose my credit card. I got on the highway and after driving for about 20 minutes a car pulled beside me and the people in the car were waving at me.
“Hello, nice people!”
I waved back. You don’t see that every day, how nice.
“Hmmmm....That’s strange”, I thought.
“They look like they’re waving rather frantically and pointing at my car.”
I pulled to the side of the road and got out of the car. I walked around to the back, and there, sitting on my trunk was my wallet. Ah yes, very wise. Apparently I had forgotten to grab it after pumping gas. Thankfully, angels must have been sitting on it as I sped down the highway. I wouldn’t have made it very far to Spain without any money or identification. Maybe I’ll go back to the drawing board on my gas station payment methods. There must be a wiser way.

I have never been a great driver. I will admit it. Even as a child I would get into accidents on my bike. One time I was riding one of those bicycles built for two (by myself, go figure). It was at a camp ground and I was racing with some friends back to our camp site. The roads were made of dirt and there were many deep potholes from the rain we’d been having. As I was riding I thought, “Hey, I should probably be wise and ride around the potholes” So there I was, intently staring at the ground to avoid a major mishap when all of a sudden I rode smack dab into the camp entrance gate. I looked down and there was a 5 foot orange wooden lift gate in my lap. I had ripped it right off! Apparently when you ride a bike it’s not good to just stare at the ground. Who knew? I shamefully had to walk into the camp office with this huge orange gate in my arms and admit I had broken their entrance. The old man just shook his head, sighed, and said...”That’s alright. It’s the third one this week”. Apparently I’m not the only bad driver.
Later when I got my license things didn’t get much better. Well, first of all I’d failed the permit test so that wasn’t a good sign. To this day I haven’t met anyone else who was able to pull that off. Let’s just say it’s a good thing I don’t have one of those bumper stickers that says “Honk if you love Jesus!” Otherwise I’d spend the whole day saying “Amen, Brother!”
My very first accident happened when I was pulling out of a Wal-mart. It was raining. Another car had plowed into me as I pulled out (my fault) and my car was in several pieces scattered around the road. Just picture me...soaking wet...running around the street picking up chunks of my car and throwing them into the trunk. Then after all that my car wouldn’t even start because of some helpful mechanism feature that prevents the car from blowing up case of an accident. That’s comforting. My dad decided to be helpful by reattaching all the pieces of my car with Bondo, which is a pink bubblegum-like substance but on a much larger scale. As if it wasn’t already cool enough to drive a mammoth green station wagon, now I get to drive it with massive amounts of pink putty all over it! It’s good for the ego.
Another time I slid my car down an icy hill into a guard rail and all my tires had to be replaced. Another time I rear-ended a limousine in a New York Cit tunnel (just so I could see who was inside it). Another time I got hit hard directly in the driver’s side door. The sad thing was I was not thinking, “Oh Lord, spare my life!”
I had no thoughts of the health of myself or the other driver. I did not see my life flash before my eyes. I was thinking, “Oh, I do NOT want to deal with this insurance hassle!” You can tell I’m a regular. I have my insurance company on speed dial.