Threes…

I have this belief that things happen in threes, especially bad things, you know, a co-worker’s parent dies, a day or two later you hear of another parent’s death and you get real nervous thinking…who’s next?? I tend to not notice when ‘good’ things happen, I’m just so grateful. I think I’ll need to pay closer attention to see if the same pattern applies.

Well, right now I’m waiting for the third thing to happen and I really hope it isn’t too bad.

First off, a friend got a new position at work (which is a ‘good’ thing, for her), the bad part of this is, I knew absolutely nothing about the opening! I was even on vacation at the time. I don’t even know who else, if anyone, applied. This new position has a direct impact on my work, as it is taking a big part of it away from me. I think it would have been nice if someone would have informed me that there was a new position available so I could have made the decision on my own, if I wanted to apply or not. Anyway, it just shows how policy has changed through the years, positions no longer need to be posted in the department. I guess we are supposed to magically Know when there is a new position posted on the Intranet. Hmmm, if we are supposed to be happy with our job, why would we be looking on the Intranet for a new one, during the work day?! I’m a big girl, I will be Okay.

Secondly, my brand new car got rear ended yesterday. There doesn’t appear to be much damage, but my Focus is a light, small car and the car that hit me was a big, heavy 1998 Buick Park Avenue. The 19 year old young man was on his way to work, talking on his cell phone and not paying attention. We were on a bridge with about four cars in front of us, waiting to turn onto 94. We had just picked up our church secretary, Charlene, and were on our way to Costco to pick up a dehumidifier for church (she is a Costco member and church is also tax exempt). David has a fear of getting rear ended, so he always checks in the rearview mirror to make sure the driver sees the brakes lights and is slowing down. He noticed that the young man was on his cell phone and didn’t appear to be slowing, so he swerved into the oncoming traffic lane (thank God there were no cars turning onto the bridge at that moment) to get out of the way and the young man followed us and hit my baby! His story was, he was slowing down and when he saw David swerve, he assumed the car in front of us stopped suddenly, so he followed us so he wouldn’t hit the other car. WELL, if he had actually been slowing down, he wouldn’t have needed to worry about hitting either one of us. I’m glad that David swerved into the other lane, or we would have been slammed into the car in front of us and my baby would be broken. Char called the police and had to argue with the operator to send an officer out. Not sure why, maybe Minneapolis has so many fender benders that they don’t want to waste their time writing reports.

Third, hmmm, I wonder what that will be. Maybe church getting broken into will cover number three. Church has a security system and when the alarms are triggered, the security company calls Charlene, lucky her. The pastor of the Hmong Church that shares our building called Char to tell her a wire had been cut securing the basement courtyard door so he wasn’t able to set the alarms after their service. David was able to splint the wire, after we made the trip to Costco to get the dehumidifier for the church basement. The storm we had Friday night raised the water level enough that water was seeping in through the floor, and while the sump pump was running, a couple of lines had fallen apart and the water was just going back into the basement. Whew! Anyway, they set up the dehumidifier, David fixed the security wire and they were able to set the alarm. We went home with the understanding that Char would call the security company on Monday to check and/or replace the line David was able to fix. Char was awakened at 4:15 a.m. by the security company telling her of a break in. She told them to call the police because there was no one at church at that time of the morning. The police arrived in time to see a body running out of the social hall. A sniffer dog was brought in and able to track the scent to the home of a person of interest. This person later confessed to the break-in, don’t know why he did it. Because David had fixed the basement door security wire, the perp. couldn’t get in through that door, so he took an ax and chopped through a glass block window. Instead of using the same ax on the wooden doors, that were locked, leading to the church’s main floor, he went back outside and broke through the windows of our Pastor’s office. What a mess, what an intrusion, what an invasion. I’m amazed that a person can think that they can just take something that doesn’t belong to them, that they can break into and ruin property that isn’t theirs. So, while this doesn’t directly affect me, except that David was involved, I’m hoping this was number three, because I really don’t want any more bad things to happen.