God Hates Me for Yesterday

"And I was greatly terrified because of the wrath and anger, because the Lord was provoked with you utterly to destroy you."
Deuteronomy 9:19

This is as true today as it was when it was written, nearly a hundred years ago. Yesterday, I may have provoked the wrath of God with my mocking of fall-down boy (who may or may not have be seriously injured). Today, the Lord brought upon me three plagues:

1. I bore witness to the mowing down of an innocent baby squirrel. A large pick up truck clipped his furry little back legs as he was darting across the street. The squirrel was, however, not was not quite dead and lay helplessly in the gutter waiting to die--fluffy tail still twitching. I wanted to cry.

2. I endured a dancing stag. It was pouring rain today, and as a result traffic was at a standstill on Lindsey. I was trapped driving behind a large SUV with a plastic stag sitting on its hindquarters affixed to the rear hitch. Disturbingly, the buck had a red and white bull's-eye painted on its ventral side. More disturbingly, the plastic suicidal animal DANCED when the driver braked. Its legs worked front to back vigorously as if to shout, "I'm over here! Point the gun this way!" I wanted to vomit.

3. I talked to an ombudsman. After pulling into the parking lot at the bookstore, a small, white-haired lady of around 80 years tapped gently on my window. I was concerned, due to her age, that she might be senile or having a heart attack, so I reluctantly rolled down the window. This was a mistake. Once down, a thirty-minute "conversation" commenced. It seems that Agnes (her real name) was a fan of the Volvo and herself had owned many Volvos [note, I drive a Volvo as well]. She told me how her last Volvo had 360,000 miles when she sold it. She told me how she bought her two sons Volvos. She told me about her mechanic who fixes Volvos. She told me about her newest Volvo. She told me lots of things, and eventually I stopped listening. Sometime during her diatribe against American cars I noticed her nametag (Agnes) and realized in horror that she was an ombudsman at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Mark and I recently had a bad experience with another ombudsman at the museum when he tried to get in our car and go home with us, citing extreme loneliness and neglect at the museum. I realized it was best to just stay quiet and let Agnes extol the virtues of Swedish auto engineering until she stopped talking or dropped dead--whichever came first. She eventually thanked me for talking (ironically, rather I let her talk) and departed, having successfully shared the Word with me. I imagine tonight she'll go to her temple of Volvo and recount her proselytizing to an eager but small crowd of followers.

The point is, "Sorry God."