Redefining "Gratitude".

In theory this is the season when we are supposed to remember those nifty characteristics of humanity that make the aliens think our world may actually be worth keeping around … for a while anyway. Things like kindness, giving, gratitude and love. We all know what I am talking about (even if some of us are masterful in hiding it)! Today I am going to focus on gratitude.

Nothing (and I mean nothing) elicits more gratitude from a soul then the appearance of a suitable relief spot when the bladder is full.

I know I know. You thought I was gonna get all holiday spirited and sentimental. Have ya read my blog?

So I am coming back from my recent weekend bday party. I am the passenger and the trip home is a couple of hours. Little sleep, lots of dancing, and a healthy (unhealthy?) amount of alcohol ensured a certain level of dehydration on my part. I was drinking water like a land-bound fish who had been eating Doritos. As is often the case, drinking a lot of water fast under those conditions often results in much of it passing right though you quickly. So it would be no surprise that I suddenly had a rather urgent call of nature.

Ironically right AFTER we left a rest area.

Being the manly man who I am [ pause to get the laughter out of your system], I figure I will tough it out until we get home. I can hold it for an hour or so right?

Forty five minutes later, legs crossed and doing the "holding it in shuffle" as well as I can in a seat, I notice there is a rest area on the other side of the highway. Thinking in logical terms ( a silly thing to do with regards to highway planning), I guess that means another on this side so I tell my buddy to get off at the next rest stop.

Of course there is not one on this side, especially since we are merging with another highway. Desperate now, I tell him to take the next exit; the one with a sign indicating several gas stations. Once again wrong choice. We end up on a long rural road with plenty a tempting trees, but seemingly no place to pull over that would not result in getting me arrested for indecent exposure.

Suddenly my buddy laughs and says that he found the perfect spot. He pulls into a driveway and spins around and a few yards back the way we came, there it was …

Complete with a divine glow I might add!

I never truly understood the word gratitude until that moment!