Feel Like Cryin’

This is weird. For about the past day and a half, I’ve had this bad feeling like, everywhere I go, people are giving me the evil eye. “Something wicked this way comes…..” and all that.

Maybe it’s the stress of the holidays. Not my stress, but other people’s stress, making people grouchy and leery and wary and apt to view anyone happy with great suspicion.

But even that doesn’t account for all of it.

It began yesterday afternoon at the bookstore (see yesterday’s epistle) and continued when I went to church.

I didn’t write about this yesterday, because at the time it wasn’t really anything, but here’s what happened: I arrived at the church for confession, and went into the sanctuary and sat in one of the pews near the confessional room. There were about six people there waiting, so I noted who they were so I could be ready when all of them had gone and would then know it was my turn.

When there were about three people ahead of me still to go, a lady I’ve seen a lot around the parish came over and slid into one of the other pews. She was clearly “with” some of the other folks there—like a whole family who had come for confession together—but she had not been waiting when I arrived.

Then it was my turn. I got up and headed toward the confessional, but this lady got their first and was starting to go in. The person who was coming out (probably her husband) saw me coming towards them and indicated to her that I was there presuming it to be my turn. So she stepped back and kind of gave me this weird look—kind of a smile, but not quite a friendly one. I don’t know what kind of look I gave her, but I imagine it was somewhat apologetic, somewhat wait-your-turn-lady in nature.

When I came out of the confessional, she was right there waiting to go in. The lady who was supposed to have been right after me had either given her permission for this or was left wondering what on earth had happened that she was being skipped over.

Whatever.

Then this morning at the Lutheran church, I felt like every person who looked at me was thinking uncharitable thoughts. I suppose that’s just me being uncharitable myself, but that’s how I perceived things.

After church, we went to the lake to feed the ducks, pigeons, and seagulls. It was a dreary, misty morning, so hardly anyone else was at the park. We had a grand time tossing bread to the birds and occasionally watching the pigeons and seagulls panic and fly away en masse.

It was still too early for lunch, so we headed up towards the mall, to browse at Barnes & Noble. Brian was driving the van, and there wasn’t a lot of traffic, but a fair amount. As we neared the mall, we had to move into the right lane, in anticipation of the right turn we’d be making.

So Brian put on his right-turn signal, saw (as did I—I’m a bit of a passenger-seat driver) that the coast was clear, and began to move over.

As he did so, a white car, back a little ways in the right lane, suddenly sped up, in an aggressive, “I’m-not-letting-you-in-buddy” type of move. I noticed this in the rear-view mirror and said, “Good grief! Back off, dude!”

The dude did not back off.

I said, “Why isn’t that guy backing off?”

Our right-turn signal was still on, and Brian kept trying to edge forward to get around this guy, but he kept speeding up and not letting us into the lane.

If it had been me, I would have just let him pass and waited to get in the lane later. But Brian is a more confident driver than I am, so he persisted, and finally he succeeded in getting into the right-hand lane.

At which point we discovered that the driver of the white car was actually a cop in an unmarked vehicle. He put on his blue flashers and pulled us over.

Great.

Brian and I were in absolute agreement that we (he) had not done anything wrong, but I told him, “Don’t be a jerk.” (Not that he would have, but I just wanted to make sure I got my advice in ahead of time, just in case!)

Thankfully, the cop was actually a nice person. We didn’t question him about why he insisted on keeping us out of the right lane with that aggressive speeding-up stuff. I kept quiet, and Brian “yes-sir”ed and “no-sir”ed while the cop delivered a spiel about safety, about how just because you can or need to change lanes doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always safe. (Never mind that it would have been perfectly safe if he hadn’t been deliberately trying to keep Brian from moving into the right lane.)

In the end, he did not issue a ticket (which he informed us would have been $123.00—yikes!). So we were very grateful for that. Still, the whole thing was so bizarre. One of those, “What the heck?” types of things. But this is what I mean about people lately—all this vengeful kind of behavior or something.

Then at Barnes & Noble, who do you think I saw? The lady from confession! We were both obviously surprised to see each other. Said, “Hi, how are you?” “Fine.” And that was it, as we passed.

I don’t know….do I owe her an apology or something? Or does she owe me one? Or was it just one of those odd happenstances that sometimes happens and is completely inconsequential? I’ve no idea. I’m not mad at her or anything. I hope she’s not upset with me, either. But who knows.

Every little odd glance and strange circumstance just built up, until I really just felt like crying.

All day today, especially at lunch, Urban has been singing “Mary Did You Know.” Except that he only knows those first four words. He was driving us crazy. So when we got home, I suggested we look up the lyrics and print them out so he can actually learn the song and sing it properly.

We did a Google search, found the lyrics, and found this video clip on YouTube.

At last, the tears came down.