Doing a 180…

As I drove home this afternoon, the skies opened. Poured rain. Piles and piles of heavy rain. Hoped against hope that the rural road leading to my neighborhood wasn’t flooded. (I didn’t bring my water wings.)

A car unexpectedly turned from a driveway onto the road right in front of me. Suddenly, the turning car stopped. Just. Like. That.  My car slipped and slid, trying to do the same. Heart pounding, I hoped there was enough traction to not slide off the road into the ditch. Oy!

Able to stop. Phew! The driver in front opened his car door and waved me around him on this two-lane rural road. What the hell was going on with him in this pouring rain? Furious, I’m already writing a script in my head replete with judgments about this foolish driver and his untoward actions on this dangerous, wet, road.

I pulled around him, slowly, and SAW the reason for his stop. A beautiful box turtle was crossing the road. The driver stopped to avoid hitting it, got out of the car in this cascade of wetness, and moved the turtle to the other side of the road. And me? I’m suddenly opening my car window, sticking my head out in the pouring rain and yelling “thank you! thank you!” multiple times.

Yes, like the unknown gent with whom I was so angry a moment ago, I’m a turtle lover. In fact, I’m such an ardent turtle rescue momma that I’ve narrowly avoided being hit by a car in my mania to-save-a-turtle. (Nothing like going into reactive mode when a turtle is at risk and forgetting to look both ways for other cars as I exit mine, to “rescue” the turtle.)

And the very uncomplimentary script I’d hastily written in my head about this stupid driver? Um, well…

Leaves me cogitating about many of the reactive scripts I compose on the spur of the moment when I don’t understand someone’s actions. No easy answers. Perhaps, I can remember to use the word “turtle” as a cue when I find myself tumbling into judgment-land….