Safe Place

(Pre-Script: This post will chill you to the bone when read as the song, " A Thousand Winter's Melting," # 15 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Sometime between when I entered Target to when I exited Target this evening, the sky began to pour. And pour. And pour it's little heart out. Imagine my surprise as I pushed my very full-of-heavy-things-including-but-not-limited-to-milk and-the-free-carton-of-orange-juice-I-got-for-buying-3-Quaker-brand-cereal-items out the exit door. Me, in my thin sweater, completely impractical but hopelessly cute peep toe high heels, jeans which everyone knows are the worst item of clothing to have to wear while wet, and no sort of jacket or umbrella, just getting mercilessly dumped on.
There was a man in my peripheral vision whom I was keeping peripheral track of, for he struck me as the stalker type. I thought it odd that he was in the same pharmaceutical aisle as I at the same time as I, then later as I backtracked for something else I had forgotten, he was also there at the same time, then at the checkout, he was the customer just behind me. Mmmhmm, you see? A girl can never be too careful of these things. He seemed to be answering his cell phone just before he walked out, which could only mean to me that he was signaling his other thug buddies who were hiding out in the parking lot that *I*, unsuspecting prospective victim of the evening, was about to exit the building. so I was leery of walking out the door of the Target, into the night.

Oh, how dark, how black a night can become. Mind you, night time is full of creeping things which do not creep about during the day, and the pouring rain does not stop them. At least I don't think it does. And one of those types of creeping things that comes out at night, besides owls and opossums, is stalker-ish men with ill intent, and their buddies. So I kept this man in peripheral awareness, and as I exited the Target to my well lit parking spot, I called out a quick but fervent, "Help me, Jesus!" up towards The Very Heavens which were pummeling me.

I made it to my car, where I still had to unload the cart full of heavy type grocery items and sundries, all the while being rained on, bitter cold, arctic rain, apparently the only kind that comes out after dark. Or maybe it's the only kind that comes out after dark when it is aiming itself at unprepared girls in thin sweaters, jeans, and hopelessly cute peep toed high heels. I kept thinking, "this is uncomfortable, and man, it would be even more uncomfortable to be knocked down by the dude or his thugs in this bitter cold rain."

However, and this is a huge however, Stalker type dude did not follow me. Or maybe he tried to and was stopped by a blinding angel which only he could see, which terrified him speechless and temporarily paralyzed, and instantly and forever cured of any desire to ever stalk, thug, or terrorize, or hang out with those who do. I hope so, because it makes for a better story. All I know is that the inside of my car was dry, the doors locked instantly, and I drove home through the rain as it poured down all around me.

It's a crazy world of unpredictable bouts of rain and pouring and bitter cold, often when you least expect it, and have done nothing to prepare for the inevitability that something might just maybe start dumping on you from who knows where at any given moment. It is also a world full of stalker-ish men, who sometimes turn out not to be stalker-ish at all, but just fellow Target shoppers with inconvenient, extremely annoying timing.

As I pulled up to the house, I saw that my world contained one safe dry spot, just one, and it was under Derek's truck in my driveway.

-XOXO,