Bloggin’ in the Back Seat
Ray and I got to our hotel in Winston-Salem last night just in time to check in and head over to the airport to pick up John at 9:00. We filled up the luggage cart with our usual: two garment bags; two soft duffle bags; my Thirty-one toiletries bag (it’s the berries); a cooler backpack with ice for our probiotics; a re-usable grocery bag packed with wooden bowls and oatmeal and almonds and stuff like that; my bag full of things to do that I keep lugging to convention after convention, wishing for some moments; and a grocery bag with plenty of raisins (I tease Ray about his raisins). We looked like the Clampetts–again!
Back in the van, Ray climbed into the driver’s seat and I climbed into the back seat. It was time to write this blog for you; and I have learned the hard way that, if you want to use a laptop in the car, you had better get in the back seat.
I learned that lesson a year and a half ago, while Ray and I were returning from a visit to see Bethany and Gregory in Texas when he was at Baylor. I was sitting in the front passenger seat, pecking away on Uncle Sam and You. We were, as usual, trying to get something to the printer, sooner rather than later.
Suddenly Ray let out a little, “Oh,” or some such; and then, “Bam!” out came both airbags. You’ve heard of “a deer in the headlights look.” That was just what Ray had seen–a deer in the headlights!
Ray skillfully got us off the Interstate and we sat in a vehicle filling with that yucky-smelling stuff that is inside airbags, trying to figure out what had just happened and what to do now. One of my first comments, after seeing that we both seemed to be okay was, “I hope that didn’t hurt my laptop.”
I reached onto the floorboard and picked it up. Actually, I picked up the keyboard section. The screen half was in the back in, oh, about 1,000 pieces. One big piece and 999 little ones had flown right between us on impact. By God’s grace, we had maybe three tiny abrasions between us.
We stood outside our stinky vehicle for 20-30 minutes before getting to meet our first and only Texas state trooper. Then we made a precautionary visit to an emergency room.
Over the next two days, we limped along in our totaled, but drivable, Suburban across Arkansas and Tennessee.
By the time we got home, John had shipped me a new laptop, set up specifically for me. When I opened it for the first time, my new wallpaper was our grandson Henry’s picture with a note:
Hey, Little Mama!
I enjoyed setting up your computer.
Love, Henry
Sometimes it is good to keep doing things the way we have always done them. Sometimes it’s not. That’s why last night, I was “bloggin’ in the back seat.”
Therefore if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creature;
the old things passed away;
behold, new things have come.
2 Corinthians 5:17