I woke up whining today.
Have you ever just woken up, gotten out of bed, wanted to stamp your feet a couple of times, cuss and just climb back into bed? I didn’t throw a tantrum until I got in the car. No cussing out loud today (even though I still struggle when I am whiny.) Orlando is the worst of the worst with crazy nutjob drivers.
Whine whine whine whine whine… whine. All morning. Not at anyone or any particular thing… just wah wah wah.
Are you getting the picture?
So, I had to run to the bank during lunch; car payment and a deposit. I get that done and am driving to go get something for lunch. I have to drive through a very rough part of town to get from the bank to the grocery store. I stop at a four way stop sign. Pull through and ask myself, “Self? what is wrong with you today?” I answered myself saying, “Well self, I am just whiny, nothing more … nothing less.”
Then my car completely and utterly dies. In the middle of crack town. This neighborhood is notorious for crime and drugs.
Now, believe it or not, I didn’t cuss. Didn’t even get upset. Seriously. Well, I might have said crap. Please forgive me. I coasted over to the curb. I called my Insurance agent to check and see if I had the coverage of tow truck and rental car if needed. I do, they cover my towing by reimbursement. I ended up not needing the rental car. I got my car towed to the dealership that I bought it from using the service they recommended.
The guy that came to tow my car was a horrible racist. He started off with, “you know you are in a bad part of town?” I said yes and that I was glad to have had this happen at lunch time. I used to live very close to this neighborhood and know that it gets very bad after nightfall. I was thinking of the drugs and violent crime … the tow truck driver was thinking race. Then he said some of the most horribly racist things I have ever heard. See this particular bad part of town is mainly minority households and the tow truck driver is white and definitely felt superior.
I grew up in Tennessee and I have heard horribly racist comments. I have fought against them all of my life. When this driver “went there” He was in the middle of hoisting my car and I didn’t confront him right then. Given my frame of mind I also thought that if I did get into it with him … it would not fare well for me and more importantly … it wouldn’t have been a Christ-like rebuke. Christ does rebuke… but I don’t think He would yell the things I was tempted too. I would have probably said something out of unrighteous anger and provoke a fight instead of dealing with the situation in a way that really would make a difference. So, I remained silent…for the time being.
During the 40 minute wait for the tow truck, I wasn’t scared. Several people walked by during that time and two people said hello with genuine smiles of acknowledgment and empathy. I was bored but not scared. I knew where I was but I just wasn’t that worried. Again, I had lived near that neighborhood before and I knew that all the crimes I had heard about happened late at night. Well, except the drug dealing is pretty prevalent.
After the tow truck driver said the awful things he did and my corresponding silence, I was remembering all of the wonderful people I grew up with, teachers, mentors and brothers in Christ who come from minority communities. Instead of stewing in my funk and reverse hating the man, I chose to remember my love for my friends and some of my family in Christ. This started my meditations away from being a self-indulgent whine-fest kind of a day to an early Thanksgiving kind of day.
While waiting on my co-worker to come pick me up at the dealership, I realized it was gorgeous outside. I was glad with the realization that I was able to coast to the curb and that my car didn’t die on the interstate! I’d much rather be alive and bored in crack town then dead on I-4. I was grateful that my car broke down less than two miles from the dealership where I have taken it in the past to have other things fixed. As I thought about the ensuing bill… I remembered that for the first time in my adult life I don’t have any credit card debt and while the furniture I was saving money for might have to wait a little longer… I was going to be able to pay for the repairs without going into further debt. I don’t even have a personal credit card. Today I don’t need it because of actually keeping to a budget :).
Also, the service department was not busy …they were able to go to work on my car immediately…it was fixed within two hours. My battery had corroded through the red cable but they were able to clip and redo the connection and replace the battery (it looked like a martian.) My car just turned a corner mileage-wise and, seriously … no kidding, I was planning on taking it in next week (I have the full week off) to have several not exactly cheap maintenance things done . They just went ahead and did them today along with the repair.
So, I spent about twice as much money as I would have if I had just done the maintenance thing next week. But now…my car is in very good shape and I don’t have to do that over my vacation. OH… and my insurance will reimburse me for the towing. 
Tonight, as I was driving home, I was singing along with my regular thump music and thinking that life is good. That is a FAR cry from where I was while driving to work.
I am praying about trying to contact the tow truck driver personally and share with him my thoughts about his statements. A part of me wants to call the tow truck place, his employer, and the dealership (because they referred this tow truck company.) But, I want to fight racism, not take revenge. I will pray through it and go forward as I feel led. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
The moral of the lesson? I am sure there are quite a few but the big one for me personally is that if God wants to break my car to get me to refocus … I guess that’s ok. Also, looking for things to be grateful for instead of settling for a whiny day is a more mature thing to do.
The moral I am still weighing out is that racism does still exist (duh) and I need to be intentional in every situation. Like Dr. King exhorts us in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, it isn’t enough to say “I will …” do something … you need to intentionally do something. I just need to figure out what is the best way to handle this. Of course blogging about it is something … but … I am still going to pray.
ok… what do you think?
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