BitterSweetLife

Generally, the phone starts ringing around 5:30 a.m. I grab the receiver, rasp “Hello,” and the automated Sub Finder system starts giving me the sordid details of my latest assignment. Yesterday was different.

The phone rang once, a shrill, staccato burst, and then it made a kind of choking sound and screamed out an unusually long, plaintive ring before falling silent. I cradled the phone in my hand, and the pale LED display stared up at me mutely. We had never been separated like this before.

Desperately, I pushed the “line 1” button again and again, attempting to resuscitate, but it was no good. No life stirred within the phone’s small, central cavity. Surprised and saddened, I looked at the clock to discern the time of our phone’s passing—but the clock was dark. I got up and hit the light switch, and things were still dark. The power was out—and it had died precisely as the school system had called me with my subbing assignment.

Some coincidences are too good to argue with. Lindsay and I got ready in the dark, and then I drove her to her job, which had been previously assigned. As we got on the highway, I was eating an apple for breakfast—apples being a relatively preparation-free food—and I happened to glance left. In a truck passing us was another guy eating an apple. I started laughing as we lifted our apples by way of acknowledgement, and nodded at each other.

It takes a really good joke to make me laugh that early in the morning.

God needs to be credited for amusing accidents.