I learned a lesson, but he didn’t

So the story starts a few weeks back when I called Travis on the phone and asked him to pick up some windshield wipers for my car on his way home from work. He didn’t. He said that he needed the car to be able to do it. Well, I knew better than that but I went along with it even though that voice in my head said to just do it yourself. “I’ll take the car up Saturday and get new ones.” He said. Well Saturday came and went and I still had no windshield wipers on my car. Luckily it hadn’t rained and I hadn’t thought about it again. That was until Thursday morning. After driving to drop the kids off at the babysitter’s, on the worst road in the county, in the pouring rain, I not only had remembered the windshield wipers but was furious that he hadn’t changed them. After a slight argument with myself where I was torn between you should have just taken care of it yourself and NO WAY, he should have to be responsible for SOMETHING! I dialed Travis’s work phone,

Me: “Put the keys in your car, I am trading you cars.”


Travis: “Okay, Why?”


Me: “Because you didn’t change the windshield wipers and I can’t see a thing.”


Travis: “Okay”


Me: (Okay?! No, I’m sorry, I forgot, no nothing….) “Okay”

After telling me where he parked the car I got off the phone. That’s where I start to realize that my plan wasn’t such a good idea. You see in the moment I thought, I’ll show him, but really the only person who got “showed” was me.


Here I am, already late for work, pulling into his work to switch cars. It is still raining, and I have 2 bags in the car to transfer over to his. There were no other parking spots so I had to pull his car out and then pull mine into the same spot. Needless to say after this ordeal I was slightly wet and getting madder by the second. (knowing he was just inside that building with not a care in the world)


Settled in his car, and once again on my way to work, I realized what a pain it is to drive a car that someone else has been driving. Nothing is in the right place and everything on his car is opposite mine, so when I was trying to turn the windshield wipers on I was turning the turn signal on and so on. The seat isn’t where I would have it etc. etc. So I turned up the radio and tried to forget the message that was creeping up in my head. “You should have done it yourself and you aren’t hurting anyone but yourself”


Pulling into the parking lot at work another fact hits me…I left my keys to the building in my car! UGH! This little exercise was supposed to be a lesson to Travis not a hardship on me! So the rain is still coming down and now I have to walk twice as far to the front door since I don’t have my key. Soaking wet, mad and feeling defeated I learned my lesson. Just do it yourself and don’t try to prove a point. It just makes it harder on you.


To pour salt into the wound I called Travis at the end of the day to remind him I had a hair appointment and I wouldn’t be home till later. He asks me, “Did you switch me cars today?” “Yes,” I said. Clearly, my switching cars did not bother him for one single second. I learned a lesson, but he didn’t.