{"id":61224,"date":"2018-12-13T07:59:33","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T12:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=61224"},"modified":"2018-12-13T08:07:53","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T13:07:53","slug":"whoops-a-story-of-gratitude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/whoops-a-story-of-gratitude\/","title":{"rendered":"Whoops! (A Story of Gratitude)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are you ready for another gam zu l’tovah\/hashgacha pratis story? Because I’ve got one for you. (“Gam zu l’tovah<\/strong><\/a>” means that everything that happens is ultimately for the good. “Hashgacha pratis<\/strong><\/a>” means Divine providence – God is looking out for us. Both of these things are true all the time even if we don’t always recognize them.)<\/p>\n

My wife works in a school that had off the Monday of Chanukah, so I took a day to do things with her. In the morning, we had individual doctor appointments in separate offices, after which we had planned to see a movie. The timing of things would have required us to hop on the Southern State Parkway, changing to the Meadowbrook Parkway. When we came out of our doctor visits, however, we were rather peckish and decided to go for a bite to eat instead.<\/p>\n

After brunching, we were driving local streets when the car thudded to a halt.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I run over something?\u201d asked the missus, who generally insists on driving.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt like something fell out,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n

We got out of the car and were surprised to see that a wheel had fallen off. Not a tire, the whole wheel!<\/p>\n

Seriously, who loses a wheel? (According to the woman from AAA, I was third person calling with such a problem so far that day, so I guess it is a thing!)<\/p>\n

The car had broken down while making a left turn, so we were blocking a T-intersection of some narrow residential streets, leaving not enough room for others to pass on either side. Normally, one would pull over to the side of the road to make room but you kind of need four wheels for that, so we stayed where we were. The tow truck took an hour to arrive, which I spent walking from one side of the car to the other, waving away oncoming cars. (It\u2019s surprising how close some drivers felt the need to approach an incapacitated vehicle with its flashing lights on whose driver is wildly gesticulating for them to turn around before they accept the reality that they\u2019re just not going to fit.)<\/p>\n

The tow truck eventually arrived and the driver was a little surprised by our good spirits. I opined that, obviously, I\u2019d prefer that it not have happened but if it was going to happen, it happened in the best possible way.<\/p>\n

The fact that no one was injured was certainly the most desirable aspect but there were so many other things for which we were grateful, including that:<\/p>\n