It's Okay, You Can Laugh at Me

I am about to open myself up to endless ridicule, I know, but I can't help it. This story is too good not to share.

On Wednesday, I was about thirty minutes ahead of schedule, and I ended up having some time to kill before I began teaching piano. So rather than sit in my car outside my students' house for half an hour, I drove about three blocks to a nearby sledding hill, which of course right now is lovely and green.

For most of the next half-hour, I went over my notes for youth service. (I was speaking that night.) The warm breezes were blowing through the open windows of my car, and the sun was warming my skin. About five minutes before I needed to head back, I stepped outside the car and stood at the top of the hill, surveying the so-far unparalleled spring day. Sunshine sparkled off a nearby pond, and the trees at the bottom of the hill swayed contently. And that's when it happened.

I decided to run down the hill.

Now before you laugh at me or patronise me, take a moment's pause. Haven't you ever been overwhelmed by the joy of a beautiful day? Have you ever been so caught up in the excitement of just being alive that you had to do something? I remember one day when I was in high school, my mother and I took a walk. It was a lovely day and I was happy with life. So I skipped a bit. I twirled around once or twice. Then I remember asking my mother if it was because I was young that I was doing this, or if it was simply because I was me? She just looked at me, confused. I came at it from another angle. "Mom, when you were young, did you dance around when you were excited? 'Cause you don't now." She answered in the negative. So I decided that it had more to do with Mindy than it did with youth, and I figure that even when I'm eighty I'll be a little bouncier on beautiful days.

Anyway, all that to say... I decided to run down the hill. (Go ahead and laugh, now that you've taken pause.) It's a pretty steep hill, so as I ran I got a little out-of-control. It was that feeling of my feet just spinning under me - there is no way I could move my legs that fast on purpose... they just sort of went. And I knew that if they sort of didn't go... I would end up on my face. So I'm glad they made it on their own.

I ended my brief, downhill sprint at the bottom of hill, breathless and laughing. It was great. Then I turned around and climbed back up to my waiting car. End of story. Or not.

See, when I got to church that night, I went to put my cell phone into my purse and... couldn't find it. The batteries had died earlier that afternoon, so I thought I had just left it in the car somewhere. I didn't see it, but I wasn't worried. My car was a mess - it was in there somewhere - I'd find it when I got home that night.

I didn't. Neither did I find it when I looked again the next morning. Getting more concerned, I searched my purse again, my room, my pockets... Aha. My pockets.

A hypothesis began forming in my mind. My cell wasn't in my car, or anywhere else that I could discover. If I had happened to have it in the pocket of my cords, it should still be there. Except... memories of racing down that darn sledding hill came creeping into my consciousness... if it had been there when I ran down the hill...

I got in my car and drove back to the same spot. I examined the parking lot thoroughly, and then started on the hill. Rather embarrassed to see a dog-walker and his pooch staring curiously nearby, I nevertheless proceeded to walk a slow, back-and-forth pattern across the approximate path I just yesterday had careened wildly down.

Please let it be here, please let it be here.... changed to... God if it's here let me see it as I reached the end of my search. My heart sank and I felt pretty silly standing there. And then I saw it. My precious cell phone laying on its face in the grass just a few feet from where I stood! Yes! Feeling a strange mixture of triumph and embarrassment, I scooped it up and headed back to my car.

So there's the story. My cell phone is none the worse for the wear, and I enjoyed a good laugh after it was all over.

Plus, running down the hill was just plain fun.