No End to Small Miracles

Yes: a day of delightful small miracles!

Started out the morning determined to renew my driver’s license. Decided to forego the Big Brother National ID hassle, mostly because I very much doubt I will ever fly in an airplane again, and because the likelihood of my ever desiring to cross into Canada or Mexico is slim to nil. Also needed to refill a propane tank and the car’s gas tank at a Costco, where these fine products can be acquired cheaply and efficiently.

Arizona’s Department of Transportation has arranged with various vendors — most of them title loan outfits — to let them provide routine driver’s license renewals.

Welp, there’s one of those places right around the corner from the university campus where the credit union resides. Now that the CU, which resides on that campus, has made electronic deposit incompatible with my software, I had to drive over there to deposit another couple of diddly little checks from Medicare and Medigap. So, on the way, it was into the…uhm…yep: title loan outfit, where I expected to cool my heels for awhile.

Incredible!

There was ONE party ahead of me, and they were already being waited on, just waiting for the clerk to generate the plastic. The place was clean, quiet, and staffed by not one, not two, but three none too busy employees.

Got IN there and OUTTA there with a new driver’s license in under 20 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!

The last time I had to renew my license, I sat around the ADOT office for a good 90 minutes till they would wait on me; then sat another 20 or 30 minutes while they farted around doing the job.

Wow! Did that ever make my day!

Amazingly enough, traffic was light. So up the road to the credit union, then further up the road to the Costco without incident. (That, if you know anything about driving in Phoenix, is some kind of marvel!) Loaded up the propane tank, grabbed a couple of items, got into a short line, paid, and flew out of there, darted into what looked like an endless line at the gas pumps, but NAY! Both pumps were being hogged by a gigantic truck, whose driver was just pulling out as the guy in front of me spotted his chance and darted over there, with me hot on his heels. Or…wheels…whatEVER. We both got a pump without a wait!

Next to me: a guy filling up a…oh yeah…a late-model Maserati!

No joke. Maserati guys get their gas at Costcso! Who knew?

SHOOT up the freeway like a rocket. Nary a moron gets in front of me. What’s wrong? Where are all my nitwit friends? Are they all sick? Some sort of moron plague? Or maybe there’s a moron convention going on that’s taken them all off the road while the learn new stupid tricks?

Weird.

Navigate the off-ramp around the panhandlers, nooo problem. Something wrong there, too…

Fly across the surface streets to St. Vincent’s: drop off a pile of clothing.  Hang a left across the main drag there (WOW! astonishing!) and fly back to the Funny Farm.

A good 30 miles of driving…UN. Mo. lested. Can you imagine?

A bag of gorgeous wild salmon steaks in the car. I want to grill one of these for dinner, but am not hungry. Take the dog for a walk instead, at which point we see rain clouds flying our way. Cut short the doggy walk and race back home, hoping to cook the food before the rain blows in.

But really truly am JUST not hungry enough to eat. Wait awhile, but…but…can’t stand it. Must. Have. Wild. Salmon swathed in olive oil and tree-ripened Meyer lemon. Must. have.

Fire up the ’Que. Fling on the last corn-on-the-cob, wait till it’s 3/4 cooked whilst defrosting a slab of frozen salmon. Fling on the salmon.

By the time it’s done, incredibly, it’s NOT RAINING yet. Not until about five hours later do the heavens open and release the deluge.

If there’s a God, evidently She’s in a good mood today.