It’s my night to drive!
“Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.” – Scott Adam
The Prelude:
They say two wrongs don’t make a right but consider table salt. Sodium reacts violently when it comes in contact with water and chlorine is poisonous to humans. But combine the two and you get sodium chloride, essential for human life and dissolves harmlessly in water, (full disclosure, I am not a chemist so don’t try this at home).
Now consider working a career in law enforcement with your fiancee. Working in the same police car, both of you armed and highly trained to kill and you decide to serve up some revenge that isn’t even luke warm yet much less cold, (full disclosure, I am not a relationship counselor so please don’t try this at home). It’s like taking a big lump of sodium and dumping it into a giant pot of water, (full disclosure, I am not a relationship chemist so please, for the love of God don’t try this at home).
The Fomentation:
It was required by our state Highway Patrol department that two officers be assigned to a car during graveyard shift. Cindy and I partnered up and as partners we alternate driving from shift to shift and alternate activity as it comes. She drives one night I drive the next, I write a ticket she writes the next, she arrests a drunk driver I arrest the next, etc.. Whomever’s turn it is to drive ‘presumably’ has free will to drive wherever he or she pleases…
..”Seriously, Cindy! It’s a hard and fast rule. It’s my night to drive I get to go wherever I want!! Sit over there and shut up and let me drive!!”
Cindy: “Blah, blah, blah…”
Me: “No! I’ll go wherever the hell I want!”
Cindy: “But I think we’d find more activity if we went..(insert any location on planet earth other than where we we’re located).”
In her defense, it was her ‘up’ for a drunk driver arrest…but… IT WAS MY NIGHT TO DRIVE, damnit! So when we heard via police scanner that a local police department was called to a possible drunk driver incident, Cindy insisted we respond to the scene to ask the police officer if he wouldn’t mind us investigating on his behalf.
I protested, she insisted, I protested some more, she insisted some more, I protested vigorously so….there we were at the scene and the officer was delighted to have us handle the incident. And why not? Less work for him, Cindy gets her drunk driver arrest and I almost lose an eye and the ability to have children.
The Scene:
A completely dark rural area, train tracks traversing the roadway, a white van stopped on the train tracks about fifty yards from the road. The right and left side tires of the van were resting on the metal rails as if the driver just made a left turn onto the tracks like he was ‘The Little Engine That Could’ but couldn’t because he was drunk off his ass.
The police officer had already detained the driver and had him in the rear of his patrol car. Cindy asked if I could begin inventorying the van for storage while she conducted her evaluation of the driver. With a great deal of grumbling and reluctance I agreed grabbing a storage form and stomping down the railroad tracks; my irritation level was at the top of the scale. A perfect 10. My attentiveness, however, was hovering close to an absolute zero.
I stomped my way along the tracks with each footfall landing right on the wooden railroad ties without a single thought of my surroundings. At the van, I swung the driver’s door open and climbed inside continuing my grumbling; ‘Why are we poaching in the city limits?..Can’t we just find our own drunk driver?..Why are we even here, IT’S MY NIGHT TO DRIVE!’
I managed to collect all of the necessary information for the storage form and began exiting the van. With my back to the door opening I hopped down with my right foot leading the way with all of the confidence my ignorant mind could muster…right into a void.
Luckily, my left foot planted squarely on a railroad tie but unluckily, I was already in freefall with nothing to stop me except my groin. My left leg folded driving my left knee into my left eye socket. The pain was excruciating but quickly overshadowed by the burning, stinging pain in my right shin and the nauseating pain where my future children were being manufactured.
Tears were beginning to pool along my lower eyelids. Apparently there is no ground between the railroad ties at this portion of the tracks because it was elevated fifteen feet? A hundred and fifty feet? Who knew…Oh wait, come to think of it, the police officer knew.
While I rested painfully in my newly discovered yoga pose I affectionately called ‘Origami Gone Wrong’, I heard uproarious laughter from down the tracks. Yes, my partner on the job and soon to be partner in life was laughing hysterically along with the police officer. I heard the police officer chortle, “Yeah, just like that!” Being a trained investigator I quickly deduced that the hammered EconoVan engineer had an equally spectacular dismount. He at least had the luxury and excuse of being inebriated.
As the laughter continued, I realized it wasn’t getting any closer to me so I was left to extricate myself. Admittedly my mood worsened with every grunt, groan and whimper. Carefully, I pulled what remained of my lower extremities from between the railroad ties. I could feel my right shin bleeding, left eye swelling and my groin, well for once, I wish I couldn’t feel it.
With a hyper-extended something in my left leg, skin stripped from my lower right leg, a bloated left eye and the ruination of my loins, I lurched along the tracks back towards the laughter and the safety of my patrol car. I thought it was great that Cindy was having a good time at my expense, no really! No really, I thought it was wonderful to hear her laughter. I emphasized just how wonderful I thought it was by completely ignoring my audience and slamming the patrol car door behind me.
As I sat reeling in pain, I couldn’t help but think how Cindy was partially or maybe, more precisely, 137.6% responsible for what happened to me. After all, IT WAS MY NIGHT TO DRIVE! This was clearly unforgivable …uuuunless?
No one’s ever said that I can be petty, childish and immature…except maybe on occasion my family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers and random people on the street. But I do think Scott Adams is correct, the only path to forgiveness is revenge, or something like that.
The Second Wrong To Make Things Right:
We’ve all heard, “Revenge is a dish best served cold” . My mother however, any time I asked when dinner would be done, always replied, “When it’s ready!” And like mom’s dinner, hot or cold, revenge will also be served when it’s ready. It didn’t take long either, just two nights later, revenge still in the oven so too speak. I hadn’t planned anything in particular but, Cindy opened the oven door and out came freshly baked revenge.
This night was my night to drive again and it didn’t take long before the jibber jabber started from the passenger seat about, ‘Why are we over here and not over there?..Wouldn’t it be better if we were across the street?..Why did you make a left turn and not a right?..Did you mean to take this street?..”
My irritability was rising in the driver’s seat as I began to drive out of town and out to the middle of nowhere. The more jibber jabber the further I drove until I’d had enough; it’s time for forgiveness.
Around midnight, putting my irritation aside, I asked Cindy if she wanted to drive and she responded with an enthusiastic, “Yes”!” I asked again just to be sure the moment was right and again, but with more enthusiasm, she replied, ” YES!” So I pulled over to the shoulder of a desolate side-street, stopped the car, opened my door, she opened hers, she got out, I closed my door and drove off accelerating rapidly leaving her on the side of the road. Absolutely hysterical, I know! It’s my night to drive and now I’m free to drive where I please.
Oh, I laughed and laughed and laughed for about three seconds before the gravity of what I had done hit me. I mean, at some point I’m going to have to go back and get her, right? I think someone might notice if I showed up at the office without my graveyard partner. Besides, she knew where I lived because we lived together.
Thank You For The Advice Mom and Scott:
My drive around the large vacant lot back to where I left Cindy was slow and the closer I got, the slower I drove. It wasn’t that I thought she needed more time to think about what she had done, it was that I needed more time to think about what I was going to do. I had gotten myself into a ‘laugh or death situation’ and I really didn’t see laughter in my immediate future.
As it turned out, once she got back into the passenger seat, there was no laughter, no death, just silence, so much silence. She may have told me once where I ‘could go’ but other than that, she didn’t say another word about where I should drive when it was my night to drive.
