When Couches Fly

I was driving my sister to the airport on a Sunday afternoon. All of my kids were in the car with me, including some of my kids’ friends. We were listening to music, enjoying each other’s company, and having a great time together.

I didn’t think twice about the fact that I was driving right behind one of those metal scrap trucks — the type with an open back stuffed to the brim with random metal parts, refrigerators, and old furniture. These trucks are pretty typical here in Chicago and up until this day I never paid them much attention.

But on this particular day, a couch that was precariously stuffed onto the back of the truck and tied down with a piece of cord somehow managed to get loose.  Flying off the truck at what seemed like 60 mph, this ugly green couch was heading directly toward me. Time slowed down in my mind’s eye and I was conscious of each millisecond: the hideous piece of furniture, midair, approaching menacingly, in what appeared to be the direction of my windshield. Complete panic washed over me as if the end of my life was imminent, G-d forbid.

There I was in the middle lane of the highway, car full of kids, with non-stop traffic on either side of me. I could not swerve right and I could not swerve left. There were cars behind me as well, and they were close enough that if I slammed on my breaks I feared I would get rear-ended and create a major collision.  The couch was fast approaching and there was no “eject” button on my SUV so what was I supposed to do? This was not a situation that I remembered learning about in Driver’s Ed.

I screamed to G-d for help, squeezed my eyes shut, and slammed on the break. Jolting forward we went from 60 to 0 in a second! The tires screeched, the children shrieked, my sister shrieked, and there we were, dead still in the middle of the highway. When I opened my eyes I was shocked to find that everyone was OK. We were all alive! My car was in one piece, my windshield wasn’t broken, and even the cars behind me were all fine.  The junk truck in front of me, and all of the other traffic on the sides of me kept driving along as if nothing happened; and the couch…what happened to the flying couch? I couldn’t figure it out. Where did it go? Is it possible that I just imagined this whole scene? Or did the couch suddenly disappear into the atmosphere? It wasn’t until I attempted to drive again that I realized where the couch was. The couch, as it were, was lodged under my car, nuzzled snugly in between my front two tires.

At this point there was lot of beeping and commotion coming from behind me, and at a snail’s pace, I managed to pull over to the shoulder of the road dragging that horrendous green couch with me. My sister and I got out of the car, and like 2 dentists yanking a molar from the jaws of a dinosaur, we extracted the couch out from between my tires. Luckily I drive an SUV which is pretty high off the ground and has just enough room for a couch at its bottom! We tossed the beat up thing as far away from the shoulder as we could, then we got back into the car and continued driving toward our destination.

Shaken up by what we felt was a near death experience, it was obvious to us that a special miracle had just occurred.

We’ve all heard the expression, “I’ll believe it when pigs fly,” but after this experience I’ve renamed it to, “when couches fly.” By the hand of G-d, we survived the doom of the flying couch; unscathed, without a scratch, a bruise, or even a dent to my car.

It is so much easier to accept G-d’s plan when we survive a near miss, are successful in business, achieve a goal, or have our dreams fulfilled. However, when things don’t work out according to our plan, when life “isn’t fair” or when things don’t happen on our time table, it is much harder to accept G-d’s control and mastery of everything. But why? It’s the same G-d! The same grand plan! And He has the same control over the minutia of every detail of every situation!

If the flying couch would have hit my windshield, G-d forbid, and led to a major car accident, would I still be as excited about G-d’s control as I am now? As much as I hate to admit it, I think it’s more likely that I would blame the careless truck driver who didn’t secure the couch well enough. Or maybe I would blame myself for agreeing to take my sister to the airport on a Sunday afternoon. It’s normal human nature to blame what we consider “bad” on bad timing, bad luck, bad planning, or a glitch in the divine plan.

But whoever said we were meant to be normal? Our challenge is to rise above normal human nature and to internalize the fact that G-d is control of everything that happens whether we like the outcome or not.  And that everything is good, weather we understand it or not.

Sound impossible to do?

I don’t know about you, but I will do it when couches fly!!