Skip to main content

Prego Brain



Just recently, I was reminded of my favorite prego brain moment. It was December and I was about 7 months pregnant. I was already stressed trying to have everything in order for Wesley’s arrival. As I’m leaving school one afternoon, I start up my car and a yellow light pops up onto the dashboard. Scared of driving it home due to previous explosions in my hood, (I blew up my engine in college due to the ignoring of a light) I sat in the car and decided to make a better and more adult decision this time.

Immediately, I call the Saturn dealership.

(Car issues can trigger me because I’m pretty sure demons live in the mechanisms of cars. The results of car trouble tend to be expensive and highly inconvenient. I can feel the frustration beginning to emerge, but I’m taking some deep breaths to counteract the upset.)

Hello, this is Saturn. How can we make your day today?

Yes, hi. I need help. This light has popped up on my dashboard and I don’t know if I should drive or not. It is yellow and it has an exclamation point.

Hmmm. I’m not sure. Are there any other lights on?

No, just this one.

I’m not sure mam, but I wouldn’t drive it until you know what is going on.

Okay,  I’ll call someone else. (a little more frustrated, and a little less breathing)

(2nd Saturn Dealership)

Can we help you?

Yes. These lights. I don’t know what they are. Can you help me?

Mam, we don’t know. We haven’t heard of that type of light. We can’t say whether it is safe to drive or not.

Ugh. I’ll call someone else. (straight frustration, no breathing)

(3rd Saturn Dealership)

Hello?

Yes, my light. I need help please.

I’ve never heard of that before. I’m sorry.

Why can’t anyone help me? There is a YELLOW LIGHT. It is has EXCLAMATION POINT ON IT. Why doesn’t anyone know what is going on?

I’m really sorry mam. I’ve been here 15 years at this particular Saturn dealership working specifically in the service department and I’ve never heard of an exclamation light on the dashboard of any of our cars. I wish I could help you.

FINE! DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. (I’m now ready to run someone over. Who the heck would breathe through this? I cannot even drive my car home from school people!)

I hang up the phone. I look at the dashboard again and then abruptly it dawns on me…

Oh.

Oh yeah. 

I drive a Hyundai.

The end.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Divorce and the Land of Israel

(If you are here, the very first thing I want you to read is this: Writing about a divorce can be sticky. I would never want to hurt B in any way. So, please know this post is about the divorce, not about B.)     Rejection.   In the past, I’d had friends hurt my feelings. I was dumped in college. There were jobs I wasn’t offered. There were times I wasn’t invited. But that was pretty much it. The rejection I had felt in my life was, what I would consider, typical.   When I found out B had filed for divorce, I was devastated. Normal, right? I think so. I was intensely sad and cried every day. This too, did not surprise me. In fact, during those first few months, I didn’t fight it. When the sobbing began, I would stop what I was doing so I could heave it out until that episode was over. I also expected the standard emotions that sadness brings with it; disappointment, depression, grief. I wept through each of these and these sorrowful emotions became increasingly better wit

God, and our rental home.

I was still living in the home that once held our family of five.  Rooms were now completely empty, the living room bare and our bedroom was...well...void.  B and his kids had left. I would collapse at the smallest emotional trigger, a "train-wreck" as some people commonly refer to it. I shed tears daily, sometimes hourly. The failure of my marriage felt catastrophic.  Spiritual questions loomed in my mind. Could I hear the Lord? Where was he in all of this? Wasn't he here...somewhere? It didn't feel like it. And if he was, I certainly couldn't hear him. I'd been taking steps one-at-a-time for a couple months, but on one particular day, I was told I had to find a new place to live too. I was crushed. Taking the first steps were hard, but having to leave our home, this home we'd bought together, lived in together, made memories in together...the permanence of this step was overwhelming.  I could barely think straight.  In fact, all I really knew was that I

They've been disarmed.

“Eric held him down until the police could get the gun out of his hand.” My friend, Beth, told me this story about her husband, a firefighter who helped wrestle a person to the ground during an emergency call yesterday.    This troubled man reached and successfully grabbed an officer’s gun from her belt, but was immediately subdued when four people, including Eric, pounced upon him. They restrained him until they had retrieved the gun and could carefully stand up again.    The culprit was disarmed.   Everyone was safe.   I love a story of valor.   Just a day before, I’d been reading through Colossians and came to chapter 2, verse 15, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, triumphing over them…”   My eyes veered back to “disarmed.” The Holy Spirit seemed to be highlighting that word in my heart, giving it an intense weight. I studied it. Originating in the late 14th century, it meant to “deprive of power to injure or terrify, render harmless.” Unable to caus