Always a Coincidence to Rock Val's World

Thank you for your suggestions to reconcile my dilemma. Only this evening, it hit me: I would be going to that session, "Life Writing: Personal Stories and Memoir,"in order to hone my work for...what else...a chance to pitch it to an agent! A chance which was right there in front of me at the very same time slot! So...I will go to the pitch session. IF I haven't waited too long to schedule it, and the one I want is booked up! I'll get right on that!

I had been going round and round with that choice all day. Well. Except for the hour-and-a-half I spent picking up my sister the ex-mayor's wife so we could go to Mom's bank and close out her account. And the 15 minutes I spent getting my 44 oz Diet Coke and two soft chicken tacos from Hardee's (Val does not live by Super Nachos alone).

Sis was actually quite complimentary today. Let the record show that I have not seen her since The Pony's graduation. I guess absence makes the sis grow civil-er. In fact, upon exiting her garage and entering T-Hoe, she said, "Oh. Your car is not as dirty as I thought it would be." Uh huh! She likes me. She really likes me! I resisted the urge to ask her if she had put another giant bolt in her driveway so I could pick it up in my tire. Or, perhaps, a mysterious bone like she discovered in her own tire, and did not have the common decency to ask her mechanic to give it back to her after fixing the tire. I will forever wonder what kind of skeletons Sis has in her tire.

Anyhoo...we went to the bank to withdraw what was left in Mom's account. Yes, it HAS been a year and four months and-a-half since Mom's passing, and both of our names were already placed on that account by Mom for our eventual inheritance. But...we were waiting for a refund from the Social Security Administration because they had taken out the Medicare payment already for March, a month in which Mom most certainly did not need any insurance services.

Sis jumped through many hoops trying to get that money back. Not that it was a lot. It was the principle. She went through local representatives and higher-ups, and was told kind of snottily by the Social Security Administration that "A lot of people have that problem, and this is not high on our priority list." So she was surprised last month when that money was actually credited back to Mom's account.

Sis showed me the balance in the checking account. "I don't know HOW, but every time I've tried to balance it, this total comes up one penny off! I think we actually have one more cent than the bank is showing. But it's been that way since Mom's last balance in the check register. That would have driven her crazy!"

"Oh, I know! She was upset when they shorted her $10 when she got cash back from a deposit. Even though they called and apologized that afternoon, and told her to come pick up her ten. So she would have thought they were out to get her again."

We closed out the account, no problem. Sis said, "I actually think we should have one more penny than what that balance shows, but I can't prove it." As the lady counted out equal shares of cash, Sis looked at me and said, "I guess if we DID have that extra penny, it would have made one of us get a cent more than the other."

"That's okay. I would have given to you. You did all the work to get back that money." Heh, heh. I can be quite generous where one penny is concerned.

On the way back to Sis's house, right after I turned onto her road, a car came up behind me. Let the record show that Sis lives in the second house. So it's not like I had been cruising along for miles.

"What in the world? Who's this coming up behind me so fast? Nobody was even behind me when I turned in." I though it might be somebody that lives on Sis's road. Someone she knew.

Sis craned her neck around. At the same time, we both said it:

"It looks like MOM'S car!"

Seriously. It was the same make and model and color. A silver 2002 Chevy Trailblazer.

"I know it's not Hick! (We bought Mom's car's half-interest from Sis.) He's parked at the airport right now while he's in Germany. That's SO weird! On this day when we closed out her account, and were a penny off."

Strange coincidences seem to follow me, you know.