The H.A.L.T. Rule

Common sense. Oh, common sense. What has happened to you in this day and age? Do you feel forgotten, left behind, mocked even? Sometimes it seems that no one uses you any more except for adorable old couples from the South and people who drop out of law school to own and operate bakeries.
The days of "If it ain't your dog, don't walk it" and "Don't bet on a tater hill before grabblin time" seem to be faded, or maybe pushed, far into the past.

My personal favorite is the H.A.L.T. rule: Never make any decisions when you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired.

But even though we don't listen to our own common sense, it's still there, just waiting for us to use it when the opportunity arrives.

Case in point: Because I did not use common sense, the other night I thought I was hallucinating.
Nope. Not a joke. Fo realz.

I work as a cocktail waitress at a popular bar in downtown Manhattan, and as a result I put up with a lot of shit from ornery customers and people who like to pretend they never heard of a tip. I am usually pretty good-natured about this and over the years have learned how to handle it, but saturday..... oh saturday.
It was my Perfect Storm.

I arrived early per my bosses request because our bar was the last stop on the Greenwich Village Pub Crawl and it was going to be packed. And it was. And just as those people started to finally leave, the normal Saturday night crowd came in. And kept coming. And kept coming.
To the point where there were so many people it took me 5 minutes just to get from one side of the bar to the other.

Now, it may not seem like a hard job, but I run my ass off and try my best to sell drinks and make sure people have a good time. I know it's nothing to really be proud of, but dammit I'm a good waitress. And saturday night, even though sometimes I pictured myself graphically and mercilessly killing certain customers, I was keeping an eye on my tips and knew I was doing well.

At the bar, we keep all of our money folded together, and the computer keeps track of how many drinks we order, and then at the end of the night we give the bar the money for the drink sales and keep the rest. On a night like this, for me it should have been around $300.
Should. Have. Been.

I counted my money once.
"Must be a mistake"
I counted it twice.
"I must have put some somewhere else... wait, no I didn't"
I counted it thrice.
"WHAT THE F***"

I was left with a grand total of $11.

I know, I know, you are all thinking of a perfectly sane and easily explained reason for this, but please keep in mind that at this point it is 3:30 AM and I have been on my feet for no less than 11 hours. I start going over the night in my head, trying to see if maybe I undercharged people, if anything seemed out of order, if I dropped off some money at the bar? Not a chance.
The money, seemingly, had disappeared into thin air.

And this is the point when my brain goes haywire. I actually thought that I had hallucinated charging people the right prices and that all night my brain had been screwing with me. After 2 months away and coming back feeling like things were finally really and truly different for me, I though my brain was having a breakdown trying to drag me back down again. And so I did the sanest thing I could think of at that time.
I completely freaked out, started crying hysterically, and stormed out of the bar.

Of course, I talked to my version of personified common sense (mom) and she assured me that of course it was a pickpocket who was smart enough not to steal my entire roll of money to alert me, but only take a bunch of twenties that I would not notice for hours.
And if I had not made a decision when I was Tired, Angry, and Hungry I probably would have realized this too.

Morals of the story? More often than not, there is an explanation for anything, Don't carry so much money around at once, and of course, When in doubt, call Mom.

And before you decide, don't forget to H.A.L.T.

Spirit in the Wreck

I should mention 2 things before writing this blog, as a courtesy to readers:

1. I could have died today

2. This post will contain talk of the big G-O-D

In other words, if you are an athiest who takes yourself way too seriously, or you are not in the mood for 'heavy' subject matter, you probably are gonna want to move on and read the last 5 textsfromlastnight that have been added since the last time you looked at the site.

Note: this is not me judging, I do it too.

I originally did not want to blog while on my trip, but I want to get this out while it's still fresh in my head, plus I'm coming home in 3 days anyway, so same diff.

Ok, so about almost dying... sorry I ruined the punchline, but here goes.

I was traveling in a car (not in the drivers seat I would just like to point out) along one of Burkina-Faso's best maintained roads on my way to hopefully see some elephants. Now, when I say best-maintained road, I'm not lying... but here, that's not saying much. Potholes and rocks galore, and since it is rainy season, mud and puddles. The driver, there being essentially no other vehicular traffic, was going from side to side on the road to avoid said obstacles, when suddenly.... A high-speed turtle shell hit us from behind just as we slipped on a banan peel and-

Oh, wait, that's MarioKart. Sorry.

Seriously, suddenly three women came onto the side of the road we were driving along in a SUV at around 35 miles an hour. The driver swerved to avoid them, they dived out of the way, and our car went out of control, slid off of the road into a small ditch, then went AIRBORNE and flipped counter clockwise. I believe we would have turned all the way upside down if a large tree did not slam into our windshield and roof, effectively stopping the car balanced on the drivers side with the passenger window above our heads.

Kids, I can't make this shit up.

So those are the mechanics of what happened, but what struck me is so much more than that. In the maybe 1.5 seconds between the first swerve and slamming into that tree, I had the oddest emotional reaction imaginable.

I felt absolutely calm.

Now I know there are many ways to explain this. There wasn't enough time to process what was happening, my brain couldn't keep up with my eyes, I went into survival mode, whatever. And if I was emotionless I would maybe believe that.

But what I felt was this calm certainty that nothing serious would happen and that I would be ok. I mean, not just hope, but absolutely knew without a shadow of a doubt, just like I know my name is Rachel and Oscar Wilde was a homo.

My life did not flash before my eyes, because I knew I was not going to die.

I know it sounds cliche, but that accident did seem to go in slow motion. As we were heading off the road I knew we were going to crash, and as I saw the tree coming I knew the car would be damaged. But I was not at all surprised when the roof directly in front of and over my head crunched inwards, and stopped about an inch from my face.

And boys and girls, out of that horrible wreck, I emerged with not a scratch.

I don't talk about this side of me that much, but I take my Jewish spiritualism pretty seriously. I believe in God, if not the traditional image of God (please note lack of pronoun use) but my own interpretation based on Torah and personal morals and logic. I don't think you're going to hell if you don't believe in God, I'm just saying I do, and I've known that for a while.

Usually the time I talk to God most is on the subway; I'm either thanking him for making the train come right on time or cussing him out for it just pulling out as I step on the platform, late yet again.

This trip has made me feel closer to God than I have in a while. I think it's because when I'm thankful for something, I feel at peace, and I've had so much to be thankful for on this journey.

But this was the cherry on top of the African dark chocolate fudge sundae.

Call me crazy, but in those 1.5 seconds, I knew without a doubt that God was, in some small way, in the car with me and letting me know that I was going to be fine.

When I got out and saw how the car was wrapped around the tree like a stepford wife christmas present, it hit me how low the probability of me not getting hurt at all was in a crash like that. Even the driver had only a small cut on his thumb. In all honesty, we could have, and maybe even should have, been serously injured or died.

Plus, neither my iPod nor my camera were damaged. If that isn't God's hand, I don't know what is.

So call it what you want. Call it luck, call it karma, call it a guardian angel, or call it a fluke. There have been times in my life (and long-time friends have agreed with me on this) when it has seemed like I have more luck than the average person (knock on wood). But maybe, just maybe, it's not always luck.

Maybe someone is actually watching out for me on a universal level.

I couldn't be more grateful.