My own personal 'Final Destination'

Dudes.

Okay, so tonight I'm on my way to yoga teacher training with Michelle and Kyle, fellow yogis. We drive together when we can, since we all live near each other. So, I leave my house 25 minutes early--plenty of time *even with snow* to get to Edina CorePower to meet. Well, not so much. Hwy 169 is bumper to bumper. And, I hit *every single* red light. I mean ALL of them. I'm like "dude, is there a conspiracy here??" And, as if that wasn't enough, every time someone could turn right in front of me causing me to slam on my breaks, he/she did so. It was insane.

So, I arrive fifteen minutes late to meet my peeps.

Then, the adventure really begins...

We (Michelle is driving) sit for a thousand years on a few roads trying to get to Hwy 100. This is the first inkling we had that perhaps time was not on our side this evening. Then, we miss the entrance to Hwy 100 because a tow truck is blocking the lane. No problem, we turn onto the next exit and work our way back to Hwy 100--only to see the very same tow truck has moved on its way and if we'd been a few second later we would have been fine.

Whatever. We drive and we drive and we drive. Kyle gives Becka (our yoga teacher) a courtesy call letting her know we'll be late.

We drive and we drive and we drive. Paul calls and I tell him I'm crabby.

We drive, and we drive, and we drive.

It takes us another thousand years and Kyle's iphone to get us onto a road where things are actually moving. We are now, like, 45 minutes late and alternating between amused, frustrated, and incredulous.

Then we get rear ended. I'm serious. Jerkoff taxi driver rams us at a red light, straight bumper to bumper and then tries to tell Michelle it was HER fault because she pulled out right in front of him. At a stop light. Where we were stopped for a good 10-15 seconds before we felt the slam from the rear. He pretends to look for his insurance information and lets the meter run on the poor people sitting in the back of his cab while Michelle and I stand out in the street and Kyle looks at the back of Michelle's bumper.

We arrive almost an hour late to the lecture of Awesome Jo Mary, who gave us one request in her email to us: to not be late. *sigh* Glad we could oblige.

Did I mention we have to get home again?

So we leave class at the end, hop back into the car and onto the slick crazy roads. We're driving along and I hear a faint siren. I turn and look out the back window and there's an ambulance headed our way. Michelle and Kyle are yakking up front and I know Michelle can't see or hear it. So, I say "There's a...there's a..." And I can't think of the word ambulance. Or siren. I can think of no words. Folks, I actually started to point. To someone with her back to me. In the dark. Finally, I say "There's an emergency vehicle behind us!" Michelle pulls over and because she had to pull over we missed our road. "Well," Michelle says, "That's just kind of the way the night is going!" We all have a laugh about that and about how I used the actual vocabulary from the driver's manual (Kyle just took his MN test) and then have a conversation in which we discuss the following two questions: 1) Have you ever been in a situation where you were sure you were going to die? and 2) What's the greatest pain you've ever been in.

Michelle drops us off, almost runs Kyle over, and I get into my car. I wish I was making this up: I start my car, lift my foot off the clutch, and my shoe lace has looped around my clutch, essentially attaching my foot to my clutch.

So it's enough, already, with the brushes with death and the annoyances and the "dude, really!??!?"s of the night. I'm home safe, I'm going to have some wine (Kyle's fabulous idea from about four hours ago) and eat some popcorn and go to bed.

And, on a serious note, be really happy neither I nor anyone I know was in one of the three ambulances I saw tonight with their sirens on.