Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Car Keys, Cattle, and Carnage Part III, In which we give up the van keys for lost

Car Keys, Cattle, and Carnage Part I

Car Keys, Cattle, and Carnage Part II

This probably sounds completely ludicrous, but on my way home I was overwhelmed with a feeling of special-ness (if that's a word). I almost felt like God had winked at me. I have travelled that road many times, before and after the accident, and never again have I seen a cow out of its pasture. Was He lovingly teaching me not to ignore my nagging cautions (i. e. about rationalizing the use of Jessie's work vehicle - or about my pride and unwillingness to turn over a simple job to my husband)? If so, He certainly was doing it in a way that was hard to miss (haha, I know, horrible). I really appreciate it when God is obvious, because sometimes I can be kind of dense. Or maybe He just wanted to show me/us that we didn't have control over everything, but that He did, and that's ok; probably both, I've concluded since then. I didn't feel like He was angry with me. He protected me from being injured in what certainly could have been a much more serious accident. I thanked Him for the lesson, and felt free to laugh over it with Him. My mood changed to a more light-hearted one on the way home, even as I dodged a couple of armadilloes in the road, and I tipped my hat to God's sense of humor.

Upon my return, Jessie viewed the damage to the truck, and I pulled bits of glass from my arm and legs. All of you animal lovers will be happy to know that Jessie felt pretty confident from the amount of damage he saw, that the cow did not meet its demise that night, and was likely not even much the worse for wear (it likely spent many more happy days in the pasture, soaking up the sun and becoming plumper and svelte-er before making its way to the slaughterhouse). We'll just have to take his word for it, because he's a farm boy, and because I never did see or hear about what became of that cow.

Due to the lateness of the hour, and the harrowing nature of the evening's events, we decided to put off the search for the lost van keys until the next day.

Accordingly, bright and early the next morning we began our exhaustive search of the house and premises. We sifted through the contents of every closet, looked under and in every piece of furniture, checked and re-checked the pockets of all clothing items, clean or otherwise, and generally ransacked the entire house, garage, driveway, and both vehicles until we were left to conclude that the keys had either been raptured, or forcibly flushed down the toilet.

Obviously, attending the baby shower was out of the question by now. But later in the day, after much guffawing and clever jibes of a bovine nature, Jessie's co-worker came to our rescue and brought us his second vehicle to be used until further notice. The plan was to drive to the nearest Dodge dealership that day (30 miles away) and have them cut a new key for our ignition. The dealerships can do this if they have the vehicle identification number. We were relieved that at least the van part of the episode was nearing closure.

To Be Continued.

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