TRAILER LIFE Podcast

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Wednesday, January 2, 2008

47 seconds

I must be on the receiving end of some shitty karma.. what did I do?

That list could be a blog unto itself.. lol

So I head out on my bike this morning for my DUI class which starts at noon. It's about 10 miles and I wanted to make a stop at Home Depot to check the schedule on my way. I padded the time so I wouldn't be late. Ever since I started these classes there has been a notice posted on the front door that states:

'Effective January 1, 2008 there will no longer be a grace period. Anyone arriving even 1 minute late to class will be turned away and have to make up that session as well as pay a late fee.'

Well I never really gave it any thought because I'm committed to putting these classes behind me. I'm not going to be late so it's a non-issue for me. I haven't been late at all, rather early to each of my sessions.. until today.

Today I was 47 seconds late.

They turned me away. Ok, it's not like they didn't warn us ahead of time but c'mon!

47 seconds?

I roll up in front of the place, lean my bike against a post, walk in and stop at the front desk where a lady is sitting. I should have just gone in. Instead I stopped and asked if I could still attend my session. What was I thinking?

She looks up at the clock on the wall, I follow her gaze.. 12:00:47

'Yeah! Who's your counselor?' she asks with a quizzical look.

'Miles' I reply..

'Oh, it's actually 12:01 so I can't let you go in...' she says with an exaggerated frown tilting her head to the left as if she's ever so sorry to have to inform me of this sad news..

The moment it took for me to ask and then have her reply pushed the time to just past 12:01 and now she was truning me away!

I was seriously angry, both at myself for not being more prompt but also with her for being so petty. I asked if she could just cut me a break this time as I have not had a tardiness issue since beginning these sessions.

Nope. She's really very sorry though.

I inquire if there's anyone she could please ask as it wasn't even a whole minute.

Nope. She's really very sorry though.

Wtf? So I turned and walked out before I said anything that would get me sent back to court. I hopped on my bike and rode off. I ended up at Starbuck's 20 minutes later and stopped for a mocha which I sipped outside while pondering this whole episode.

Here's the thing - I could make calls, write letters, bitch my ass off about this and probably nothing good would come of it. Probably bad things would happen instead. Things like 'Watch that asshole Dave, he's a problem..', or 'We checked with the DMV to verify that you only need to take the 90 day First Offender Program and unfortunately they need you to complete the Second Offender Program.. We're really sorry but our hands are tied...', or whatever else they can think of to manipulate the situation.

So I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to be more careful and make sure I'm early from here on out. It's really the smartest choice. I can't afford to make waves at this point. I'd like to think that I have some wisdom. A younger version of me would probably have gone ballistic at the moment instead of leaving quietly. Then the young me would spend huge amounts of black energy on plotting the destruction of this obviously evil & assinine organization that feeds on the unfortunate souls who become snared in their web.

Karma really does have everything to do with this, and all things both good and bad that cross our paths each day. I'm far from being able to see light at the end of the tunnel but my eyes are open and my head is clear.

I'll just keep moving forward ever so slowly and watching the signs as they appear.

Labels: Bicycling, DUI