As I made my way through the neighborhood today, I noticed a man standing beside a car in a driveway. The man was wearing over-sized white mittens on his hands; I assumed perhaps they were the latest ‘as-seen-on-tv’ type of device for applying a beautiful wax polish to a vehicle. However, as I walked closer and closer to the scene, I began to see faint smoke puffing off the roof of the car. Umm…. that’s not a good sign….
But the man seemed more curious than bothered. He looked at the smoke with interest, but not alarm. I, on the other hand, started to grow quite concerned. A tiny issue can become an extreme one in just a few brief seconds; shouldn’t something be done to try and keep this issue a small one? (Or, a small-ish one?)
Yet as I drew a few more steps closer, my perspective changed again. I saw more detail in the scene: what I had thought was smoke was actually fog, and what I had assumed to be car wax was actually dry ice. Apparently, the man was trying to remove a few dents from his car via the ‘dry ice’ method – presumably to avoid having to take the vehicle to a body shop to have repairs done.
Though I never heard the tell-tale “pop” of a dent reversing, I experienced a metaphysical ‘pop’ of the bubble of concern I had involuntarily manufactured in the four seconds it took me to generate a “fire” (and then mentally extinguish it).
Of course I’m happy that no issue ever existed. But the situation did give me yet another occasion to see how quickly my mind can move – and to be a little entertained by my thoughts. That is, after the paranoia passed. 🙂
Stef
P.S. If you’d like to learn more about the dry-ice-car-repair method, feel free to check out this video. You can skip ahead and start at 1:20; and if you’re in the mood for a few extra smiles, check out 1:56 and 2:18.
Smile, kiddo. 
What I like about your posts Stef is that you are aware of what is happening around you – you live in the moment. And I think you may just a little bit of the Irish in you – you can turn an ordinary scene into something entertaining and informative at the same time!
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Well, I’ve been training for nearly 2 years now to try and live in the moment (http://meditationmania.wordpress.com/) – so I’m delighted when it actually happens every now and again! 🙂
As for having some Irish in me: 1) thank you! I appreciate your compliment! And 2) as folks around these parts say, I’m what is kindly referred to as an “ethnic mutt”. That is, I have a whole bunch of different ethnicities in my family tree, and I’m about 5% of about 20 different things. 😉 Irish *is* in the mix, as is British, and Scottish, and Welsh, and Hungarian, and French, and Spanish, and Polish, and…..
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it amazes me how quickly our mind processes something we see or as it turns out, think we see. We are such creative creatures!
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The speed of thought is sometimes faster than the speed of sound or light. We *are* really creative beings! (For better or worse; though most days I like to believe it’s for the better…) 🙂
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