The Voice Rambles On - 1. Opportunity

Opportunity

“Come on Cara – you know I don’t give two hoots what some ding-a-ling staring at stars at night says in a 5 line clip in a newspaper!”

“Just read it Kate! At least you will be prepared when the shit hits the fan later!”

“Oh, please! How can you possibly believe in this tripe?”

Cara pushed my laptop back and sat on the desk blotter, pulling her feet up to sit Indian-style and crossed her arms. Do they still call it that, Indian-style? I am so out of the loop on what my gram used to call young-speak.

“I am not going to move one inch till you read the damn thing. After what you told me when you called to say you would be late, this has become important!”

“Oh all right! I’ll read it if that will get you off my desk and out of my hair! But you have to promise me when it all falls flat and doesn’t come true you will leave off and never bother me about this stars in alignment crap again!”

Cara made a face and growled. “READ!”

Libra – Be careful where you turn today. An unexpected diversion could change your whole life. Morning brings stress and mess, mid-day means headaches, and evening brings opportunity. You must strive for the balance so essential to a Libra!

“Ok. So they got lucky. You can’t convince me this had anything to do with the accident this morning!”

“You are impossible, Kate! Why can’t you admit there is more out there than we can possibly understand?” Cara stomped off in a huff.

To be fair – my morning HAD brought stress and mess, but part of it was sort of self-inflicted. I may not be an active member of a rescue squad since I moved here, but after years as part of one back home, there was no way I could drive past an accident and not stop to help. The driver had slid on the icy roads right into a ditch filled with snow. The accident itself really wasn’t bad, but his wife was in labor, and close, which is why he was speeding when the roads were bad. Delivering the baby just as the local squad arrived certainly was a mess. I ended up turning around once I was finished with the police reports and heading home for a shower and fresh clothes before heading into work late. Yes, a bit stressful, and very messy, but hey! I delivered a baby!

Just when I thought things had finally settled down for a long boring day of paperwork, I got an e-mail memo from the boss demanding my presence at a luncheon meeting. The time stamp claimed he had sent it at 9 am, but it didn’t ring into my inbox till five minutes before the meeting time. I would barely have time to hit the ladies room and cross the sprawling facility to the conference room! So much for my plans of a quiet half hour up on the roof watching the snow fall!

The meeting wasn’t even something that had to be discussed in a group! The boss ranted on and on about reducing losses on the production floor, and how we all had to do a better job to make it happen. Somehow he just does not understand the QC staff does not CONTROL the quality of the ware, we can only monitor it! If you want things made better in the first place you have to take it to the gang out on the production floor. I can pass or fail a piece, but only the machine operator can change what he is doing to make it come out better! It’s an argument we have regularly in this place. Ninety minutes later I came out and headed for my desk with a whopper headache. What did the old commercial say? It had Excedrin written all over it. Well, at least they fed us lunch while they ranted on.

Ok, I didn’t get into work till eleven after the accident, spent from 12 till 1:30 listening to the same old rants, which left me two hours of the day to get an entire shift’s worth of inspection reports and loss tickets entered into the system. So not going to happen! But I plugged away till Cara came past and poked me.

“You planning on making up the time you lost this morning? You know they will not pay you unless the idiot upstairs approves it. And somehow after his rant today about poor quality and high costs of production, I doubt he will.”

“I didn’t realize it was so late! It seems like I just sat down at my desk!”

“Come on lady, let’s blow this pop stand! You have an opportunity to confront tonight.”

“Cara, please don’t go there! You know my opinions on horoscopes.”

“Kate! You have to admit, the damn thing has been right so far! You had stress and mess on your way into work, and if that loss reduction meeting wasn’t a headache, what is?”

“I am going to go home and take the opportunity to soak in a hot bathtub with bubbles and a good book! How is that for making it come true?”

She shook her head and started towards the door.

“Don’t come in tomorrow and say I haven’t warned you! I have, and the stars have!”

Well, so much for a quiet trip home! First it took me twenty minutes to chip the ice from my Jeep. At least it was warm inside once I finally got the door open! Thank you my dear ex for the remote starter you had installed! Roads were horrible. Many were closed due to accidents. If I had been here longer maybe I would not have gotten lost, but two months hasn’t been enough time to learn all the back roads yet. One too many detours had me turned around and completely baffled as to how to get home.

Detours…turns…

I shook my head, berating myself for where my thoughts were wandering. This whole day was one huge coincidence. It had to be.

The little voice in my head kept whispering at me though.

“You don’t believe in coincidence. One point maybe, two unlikely, three no way! Keep your eyes out for that opportunity!”

Ok, now Cara was making me nuts! I know basically what area I am in. I should be able to figure out how to work my way back to the main road. I have the dashboard compass. If the solar flare the news was talking about hasn’t screwed things up too much I should be able to head south and east till I hit a main road. From there I can manage to get home. I have a map. I just need to figure out where the hell I actually am!

An hour later I found myself at a DUI road stop. What lunatic cop plans a DUI check in the middle of the winter’s worst storm? At this rate I am not going to get home till midnight!

I rolled down the window and handed my license and registration to an officer who looked more like the Michelin man than a cop, he was bundled up so heavily. I felt sorry for him. I am sure he had a few choice words to whatever muckety muck decided today was a good day to do this.

“Look officer, I know you are just doing your job, but can we hurry this up? I have had a wicked day and all I want is a nice quiet evening under a quilt.”

“Kate? Kate Carington? Is that really you? What the hell are you doing here?”

The officer pushed back the fur lined hood of his parka revealing a face I had not seen in thirty years. Tim and I had gone to school together. I hadn’t seen him since he and his twin brother Tom had left for college. I have no idea how I could tell them apart, but I always had been able to.

“Tim? Oh sweet stars, what are you doing here? Last I heard you were entering the academy back home!”

Tim laughed. “I asked you first! Tell you what, you are the last car in the check – what say we hit my favorite diner and warm up while we catch up? I’ll buy you dinner.”

An opportunity…