It Could Only Happen To Me...

From the "I may not be the brightest candle on the menorah, but..." dept:

Okay, just shy of a month ago, I chalked up another birthday. I used to like birthdays. Back in my party days, it meant that I could go get drunk off of my butt and it was okay. Of course back then, I'd be more than happy to crack a few open to celebrate Flag Day, Bastille Day, and the Feast of St. Francis if it meant getting hammered... Okay, fast forward to the current edition of me. Sober, a little older, a smidge wiser, and a few pounds fatter (okay, time to celebrate... er, oops... ain't doing that anymore)... I celebrate differently now that I survived the insanity that was my younger years and am now more grateful that inspite of the really poor choices of my past, I am trying to live a more docile, peaceful life with my faith at the forefront. I don't hide it nor am I embarrassed by it. I'm a child of God. 'Nuff said. I use that to guide me these days. It doesn't mean that I'll have peace from difficulties. Not everything is going to be sunshine and daisies and chocolate bunny rabbits (which I can't eat any way because I'm a friggin' diabetic...) But a faith that tells me that He will be there beside me when I struggle with life. That if I blow it, He will still love me and forgive me and understand me. He created me for cryin' out loud. I needed to start focusing on worshipping the Creator and not his creations...
Now back to the birthday thing three weeks or so ago. I stop at the Bureau of Motorized Vehicles (BMV) to get my new tags for my license plates for another year. The lady wishes me a happy birthday (an a.d.d. moment: in her line of work, I get the feeling that wishing EVERYBODY a happy birthday is an occupational hazzard) and I politely say thanks and leave. Fast forward to last Sunday. I go to church and am talking to people afterwards. I'm just enjoying the time with folks and cracking a few jokes along the way. No big deal. Till I leave and stop at the gas station to fill up. I reach for my wallet and the only thing I feel is the surprise of my backend (a side note: if I wore white pants, you could show a movie on my rear, but I digress...) and that sickening feeling hit my stomach. So I drive back to church. And I stop at the info center and the lady behind the counter is very helpful and tells me that they found my wallet. I breathe a HUGE sigh of relief. I take my wallet and thank her profusely. I leave church, head for home and when I stop at the store and grab my wallet again, I look inside and find everything intact. Everything but my driver's license. Now I'm thinking (a danger in itself) "Did someone take it from me for identity theft?" I am fearing the worst. So I drive back to church again, and they're very helpful but NO license. So I go and look all over the place in the church but nothing. I go home and look all over. Again, nada. So I call the BMV and tell them my dilemma and they tell me I need my birth certificate and social security card. I lost my social security card years ago but never though of replacing it because it's also on my driver's license. But now I needed one and had to go to the Social Security administration office to get another one. I got my number to wait to called and my ticket said that the estimated time till my number would be called was 140 minutes... WHAAAAAT!!!! So what's a dork to do? I waited. I finally got called after only about 45 minutes (thank you Lord), and got what I needed and headed over to the BMV to get a duplicate of my license. I walk in there, take another number to wait, and sit and wait. My number gets called, and I go up. I have the same lady that I had a few weeks ago. I tell her that I need a new duplicate license and she tells me that it'll cost full price (ugh...) and I told her "the last time I remember seeing my driver's license was when I pulled it out here a few weeks ago on my birthday to get my new tags." She looks at my info, asks when my birthday was, and then excuses herself and goes to a back office. She comes back, with a big grin on her face, and extends her hand out with the driver's license that I had left on the counter at the BMV three freakin' weeks ago!!!!! The only thing I could manage to say was: "y'know, it could only happen to ME..." Man, I gotta tell ya, it's funny sometimes. I can do some really dumb things. But I have faith and I didn't panic at any time during this whole thing. It's always easy to talk about faith but when something is happening in your world like you have serious issues with a family member or a close friend. Or when a loved one is having serious health issues. It's easy for me to say on the outside to have faith and it'll be okay. But sometimes my faith gets tested. Whether it's something small like losing a wallet, or something more serious like my sisters' health issues, I have put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. God Bless you and I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll stop by soon... eventually! (you've been warned... mwahahahahahaha) :)