Recently in one of my evening commute back home, I was involved in a fender bender accident. I wont go into the details of it as it is not much relevant to what I am about to say. Besides, Big Brother Gordon* is watching the web 2.0 saying 'you have the right to remain silent, whatever you say(post) on social media can and will be used against you'.
After the accident, making sure the other passenger was fine and the insurance information exchanged, I set off on my much delayed commute back to home. It was about 7:30 PM now and had been three hours since I started from work. I was only few miles from work with many more miles to go. It was a really bad day, with overcast conditions all day and incessant downpour at that moment(to contrast the past two weeks are extremely hot and I long for the rain like the other day I am narrating here). Basically it was a perfect weather to cause myself to dig into accident induced sorrow and self pity.
I began to think all sorts of things; it was the punishment for the poor decision I made. I moved from this neighborhood(where I was driving now) about a month ago and never had a problem until now. It was a busy road that winds past the public library. I thought of the library about a mile away and realized the whole cause of the this messy situation. The library has a used book sale in a small room at the back. A week before I moved, I had bought three books there. While checking them out, I handed a $20 bill to the librarian there. The guy said he did not have the change to break my $20 bill. So to date I owed them $1.25 for the three books - two adult paper backs $0.50 each and one kids book $0.25. He had asked me to pay when I return. Return I never did. Since the day of purchase, lot many things were to be taken care of and I lost track of the library and the money I owed them. Also the library was quite far away from my current commute.
So now that fate had me driving through those roads, I recollected that I owed the library $1.25. The goddess of learning has decided to teach me a lesson. I decided to pay for the books and possibly do a donation for the library. As I came on this decision to atone for my bad karma, I was at the library now. To my dismay the library was closed. I forgot that the library closes at 5:30 PM and it was close to 8: 00 PM now. So I kept driving past the library while watching the closed sign on the library. The two glass windows appeared like eyes and the branches of the tree in the front waved to and fro towards the library entrance doors. It was as if the library was gesturing "I am watching you" through the trees and the windows. It creeped me out.
Here is what happened on that day between 4:30 PM(the time I left work) and 7:30 PM. I set out from work without an umbrella on a day with rain forecast. The sky was cloudy when I came out of the building. By the time I reached my car in the parking garage(couple blocks away) the rain began to pour. I set out in that bad weather to drop off a cable and Internet modem I was renting from my previous cable provider. It had been more than a week since I shut off my account and I received a reminder from my Cable service provider to return the equipment. The service center was deep in the city and I had to go through severe congestion and roads with traffic lights all over. I reached there 5 mins late at 5:35 PM. The security guard was signalling me away shouting that the building was closed. With drooped shoulders, I sat back in the car and began my drive home.
The drive from the service center to the nearest interstate turned out to be as bad as my previous segment and it was 6:30 PM when I saw the interstate traffic at standstill. I sighed and decided that I will take a 30-40 minute break and start again. I drove past the ramp to the interstate, which was heavily congested and slowing moving forward like a slug, and came by a small mall. There was a bank next to the mall and I have an account there. Thinking it would be good way to kill time, I stood in line for customer service to update my address in the accounts I had with the Bank. Was that stupid or what. The customer service needed a utility bill or a lease with my new address on it. I had neither of them on me. This after I waited for half an hour. I was depressed and began my drive back home at about 7:10 PM. I came close to ramp to the interstate and the traffic was still congested. The rain pour was incessant, I skipped the interstate and took the local route home. Fifteen minutes or so later I was in a fender bender.
About a week passed. I was driving home after work and few miles later the traffic came to a stand still again. I was close to the same exit as that on the day of accident. I hesitantly took the exit and drove through the same roads that I took on the rainy day. I drove past the intersection where the accident happened. The rainy day image popped in my brain for a second, but I was shrugged it off. I drove past the library, but it was closed again. The trees and the library windows were reminding me of the debt I owed to the library. This I could not shrug off. I have to take this exit again sometime soon to repay my debt to the library; all of a buck and quarter.
Rational Reasoning: The cause(s) of the situation I found myself in could be two fold. The first was the bad weather. I should have waited the rain out somewhere. But I didn't. It is weird how bad weathers makes humans make bad decisions. It is a common scene for roads to be filled with cars and grocery stores filled with people during times of bad weather. Second, I was trying to recoup some of the lost time by squeezing in some productive work out of it. So instead of reasoning out the rational way, my mind was playing drama filling me with guilt over a $1.25 that had no relation to the incident. But who said humans make rational decisions.
*Gordon is the first name of Gordon Gekko(played by Michael Douglas) in the famous Hollywood movie Wall Street. The last name rhymes with the mascot of a famous insurance company.
