So I was at a light waiting to turn right and traffic was backed up pretty good. The guy in front of me, whose superior intellect I do not possess, had an Einstein moment rarely seen by the human eye and ne'er caught on camera. He decided to hang a right into the Del Taco parking lot and bypass the four cars in front of him. Genius! What a brilliant way to shave three seconds off of your drive—only the light turned green as he was turning into the parking lot of one fine Mexican cuisine dining establishment, if I do say so myself. Everyone in front of me began to make the ensuing right hand turn including the five cars behind me. As I rounded the corner I passed by Einstein, who had made it to the other side of Del Taco’s customer parking exit area. Albert was also poking the nose of his car out onto the puddled street waiting for the caravan of cars to pass him by so he could re-enter the fray. I didn’t have my window down because of the rain but if it had been a bright sunny day I imagine I would have rolled down the passenger window in order to enjoy the vroom vroom of his gnarly V-6. I enjoyed the next ten seconds of my life as I kept glancing in my side-view mirror waiting to see what would become of his new position in the pack. Yet the size of his car increasingly decreased until I saw him no more. It seemed like I would never see him again. How I missed him in those few seconds. What would become of him, I wondered? Had he put his car in reverse to retreat to dine on fine Mexican cuisine? Was he now chowing down on a Cali Steak & Guac Burrito with extra chipotle sauce? I tried not to covet, but I found myself in need of repentance. During my moment of missing him and envying him it felt like an eternity had passed and the hope of seeing him again had long faded away. Likewise, his 3-seconds-saved-dream had blown away in the wind like the white fuzz of a dandelion only to carry off his dream-seed that would soon be planted in some other fool’s head. And no sooner than my hope of seeing him again had vanished, that the proverbial sun had broken through my proverbial cloudy moment and shone upon me. It was a warm and cozy feeling, not unlike putting on a warm jacket after being out in the freezing cold. After the five cars behind me passed him, he was back in my side-view mirror and back in the game like a race car driver after a pit stop. My Jedi powers could sense the force of his foot pressing firmly down on the gas pedal...vroom, vroom, vroom. Simultaneously the coveting had ceased and my heart leaped as I knew that Albert's dull silver 3.5L Toyota Camry was closer than it appeared--my mirror told me so.
So that Einstein moment put him six cars behind me. A smile crept across my over-sized face and head as I nodded it with much effort and pleasure. I’m no Einstein myself but I’m a finance manager at a dealership that can add and subtract with the best of them. He had gone from 5th place to 11th place. That’s a net gain of -6. I'm confident he will not be qualifying for any NASCAR races this year until he gets his shortcut game up to speed. (Did you like that pun? I did.) Maybe it was a physics experiment of negative numbers on a rainy day. Maybe it was a moment for me to write about to make your day. But at this moment, I’d just like to thank the Lord for instant justice with a sense of humor.
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