Heroic mother

Have you ever been in a situation where you feared for your life or felt fortunate to have survived a situation. I had those types of flashbacks today when I read this article in the Toronto Star. It is a heroic story about a young mother who risked her life to save her daughter stuck inside a car indulged in flames. Her quick reaction saved herself and her child's life.

I have had my share of moments that I am thankful to have survived, consider the following:

• Driving on the 407 ETR, my car slipped and did a 180 across three lanes. My car was not hit nor did I hit anything.
  
• Driving in a Boston winter snowstorm, where snow was coming down faster than my windshield wipers could clean them.
  
• Getting lost in South Philly

During the heat of the moment, you only think about surviving and later reflect back and ponder the "what if" situation. I am sure we have all had similar moments in our lives and are thankful to God for helping us. These moments can be a life changing event, giving us greater appreciation for life. I definitely did during my moments of fear and am sure that the mother and child do too.

Look who is NOT talking

A reader of my blog told me that my posts are predictable, all involving a complaint about some life-experience and relating it to a Seinfeld moment. Initially, I disagreed, however, after some thought I realised there is some truth to his comment. Since my current blog title is an established “blog brand”, there will be no such name change and I will continue to complain and relate to Seinfeld. My latest experience involves cabby drivers.

Some time ago, I took a cab to the airport. I am typically in no mood to strike a long conversation with the cab driver. I will talk about the typical stuff, for example, gas prices, weather and traffic. However, my cab driver expects me to converse openly. As soon as I get in the car, the interrogation beings,

where you going? why you going?, where do you work?, etc…

To make matters worse, this cabby driver inserted a swear word into each sentence, I was shocked. Once I arrived at the airport and was about to enter the terminal, he wished me a safe trip and joked that I should participate in an inappropriate activity. I walked away in disgust and proclaimed never to use this taxi company again.

I am in no mood to give a full dissertation of my current life to a stranger. During my ride, I just want to stare out the car window and think about nothing. I recall a Seinfeld episode involving Elaine, who faked being deaf to avoid conversation. The following is a snippet of that conversation.

Driver: Dag Gavershole Plaza (sp?) huh? (Elaine ignores him) Pendant Publishing, that's books right? (Elaine is annoyed and still ignoring him) Miss?
Elaine: Pardon me?
Driver: Books, that's what you do?
Elaine: Yeah.
Driver: Yeah, I don't read much myself, (Elaine is annoyed) well you know besides the paper. Yeah a lot of people read to relax, but not me. You know what I do?
Elaine: You know I'm having a lot of trouble, um, hearing you back here. So...
Driver: (Yelling) I said you know what I do (Elaine is very annoyed) when I want to relax? The Jumble. Hey do you make a book of Jumbles?
Elaine: I'm going to have to be honest with you. I'm going deaf.

I will not resort to such measures, but I hope all my blog readers (probably the ones who have this blog on their RSS reader) understand mine and Elaine's pain.