I wondered if I’d heard that correctly? Or was I focusing more on the biography I’m writing for a client (at a ridiculously reasonable price I might add) than really listening to what she was saying? Did she say there was a car inside the op shop? I didn’t realise op shops sold that sort of thing. Did I just assume, because she was so excited, she had bought it or was there something else going on?
As it turned out, there was.
And it was one of those stories you hear about which leaves you in no doubt as to the fickle nature of life and fate.
In this case, my beloved was a mere 10 seconds from serious injury, if not worse.
So let me explain.
As I say, I’m back at home when the phone rang.
A breathless, excited Mrs P is on the other end talking 90 to the dozen. Naturally, my first go at understanding what on earth she’s on about failed miserably. Yep, new op shop, Bargain. Car inside.
Still none the wiser, I asked her to repeat what she’d just told me.
New op shop. T-shirt for me in window which was a bargain. Thinking about it. Car ended up inside.
Hmm. We’re getting there and now I know it’s a little bit more serious because she’s getting a bit tearful.
Helpless without any transport to get to her – I was seriously eyeing up the horse in the paddock next door at one point, I kid you not – I asked her to calm down, take a deep breath and start from the beginning. Again.
This time the picture became a lot clearer. And scarier.
She’d got the milk and, as expected, had decided to have a look at an op shop or two before she drove back to my warm embrace.
Amazingly, right in the window of this op shop she’d not been in before was a T-shirt in my size and colour.
Mrs P reckons she was there maybe 15 minutes, wandering around the shop but always ending back at the T-shirt in the window.
Succumbing to what has become known in our family as “paralysis by analysis”, she felt unable to make a decision on the T-shirt there and then, opting instead to have a think about it. As you do.
Luckily there was another op shop 10 yards down the road and 30 yards up a side alley where the ambience was more conducive to such decisions.
She reckons she was no more than 15 seconds out of the shop when the sound of an almighty crash pierced the air.
Mrs P ran back around the corner whereupon she discovered a car had reversed at high speed through the window of the op shop she’d just left.
Thankfully, it being a relatively small village, help came from all points quickly and two people involved quickly received appropriate help.
It was then, just as the adrenaline started to subside, Mrs P rang me, the realisation of her close call finally hitting home.
As she said, she’d been standing in exactly the spot where the car had smashed through the window. There was no question she would have been hit and perhaps killed if she’d still been standing there thinking about the T-shirt.
Somebody, up there, had been looking out for her, she said.
Obviously I urged her to come straight home and about 30 minutes later she pulled up.
As I wrapped her in a bear hug I asked if the accident had resulted in the road being closed and her return delayed, a perfectly natural query given the village was probably only 10 minutes away.
I hoped she hadn’t gone elsewhere to see if she could still find me a T-shirt. It turns out she hadn’t.
She’d gone straight to buy a Lotto ticket instead.
It’s hard to argue with that when luck is on your side, isn’t it?
Beats an op shop T-shirt any day.
