"All words are symbols that represent unspeakable realities. Which is also why words are magical." (Donald Miller tweet)

Monday, June 07, 2010

bonnie and clyde

I may have met them last night.

Don't tell anyone - after all, I don't want them to come after me. I figure it's best to just keep my mouth shut. Except with you. I trust you guys.

Late last night, Spike and I were in need of pizza. So we worked out the divison of labour, as always. Spike made the call and I was in charge of pick-up. (That's a very important point of negotiation in our marriage. It's a special day when one of us makes the call AND picks it up. That's big points, right there.)

So I had to go to the bank before picking up the pizza. Drove into the parking lot. Vaguely noticed the minivan pulling in to the same lot right after me. I had just stepped out of the car, but hadn't yet closed the door, when the sound of metal hitting cement caught my attention. The minivan, pulling into the spot beside me, had kept right on going, up onto the sidewalk and right into the wall of the bank.

This is unusual, don't you think?

I realized that as this happened, I could hear a man's voice inside yelling, "Brake! Brake! Brake!" Obviously, his yelling was ineffective. Yelling at a driver usually is. That's a life lesson for you, right there.

I stood there staring at them, wondering if everyone was OK, wondering if I should find another bank machine ... but there aren't any others nearby, and the pizza was waiting, and I was hungry ... although that seems like a weak explanation if later on I'm implicated in a bank robbery. I truly wondered if a bank alarm was going to go off, and if it did - should I stay? Should I go? Should I proceed to get my measly $20 out? If I did, would I find Bonnie and/or Clyde suddenly beside me, politely requesting at gunpoint the other $20 in my bank account?

Nothing happened.

Then the minivan suddenly slammed into reverse and just as speedily bounced backwards and slammed noisily down off the sidewalk.

So I went in. A few seconds later, in came Clyde, laughing. "She's just learning," he said.

"I figured," I said. "I heard you yelling something about brakes...."

"She says she couldn't find them," he said.

We both laughed, and then I walked out. Glanced over, where Bonnie had moved into the passenger seat and refused to make any eye contact at all. I'm sure she was busily erasing the entire event from her memory.

So if my name is suddenly in the headlines, I may need you to vouch for me, OK? Because that's my story. And I'm sticking to it.