My Sabbath Afternoon.

It was a bright and sunny (and warm!) Sabbath day in Idaho. It had been an amazing Fast Sunday and my roommates had all decided to take their after-church nap. Though I was also tired, I decided that I would get a few things done before I became dead to the world. So, I was sitting on the couch using my roommate's laptop when all of the sudden a horn went off. The horn was very loud and whenever I thought that it was sure to end, it continued.

Occasionally it would stop and then start up again. It wasn't long before I become completely irritated and one of my roommates even woke from her nap. My roommate had been sleeping on the couch and, upon waking, voiced her opinion on the obnoxious car-horn-honker. I couldn't help but think that perhaps it was someone late for church or that perhaps it was a guy honking at a girl with whom he was going on a date. I made up my mind then (not that it hadn't necessarily been made previously on this matter) that if a guy EVER honked at me in that way -long and drawn out and for all of thirty-nine apartments and for all of the two-hundred thirty-four girls that might also be taking naps to hear -that I would immediately dump the inconsiderate stink-bomb and find someone else!

And, despite the many deserving comments that I thought toward this Honker, the honking continued. We could, by that time, hear our many neighbors grow more and more irritated by the honking.

It wasn't until my roommate, the one who had woken from her nap and who was now staring out the window that I changed my mind.

"Hey," my roommate said, squinting through the blinds, "isn't that Betty's car?" [name changed]

I thought it unlikely since Betty's car was older than mine and she had never before mentioned an alarm. However, my roommate -we'll call her Stella -asked me to go and wake Betty up and ask her to check. So, into the room I went (with the honking ringing loudly in the background) and woke Betty up from her nap. Eventually, she and Stella were both standing by the door watching, trying to decide who's car it was. Betty was sure it wasn't hers and Stella was sure it was.

At that point I was so irritated that I volunteered to run down the stairs and through the parking lot with my bear feet to see who's car it was -anything to get it to stop! I discovered quickly that Stella was right and so Betty came out to stop the ridiculous honking. She did. And it started again. It stopped. And started again. This must have happened at least half a dozen times before a young man came out to help. Much of the complex had by then come to see the fiasco and were now leaning out over the railing to get a better look. The young man, eventually, unplugged the horn (somehow or other) and the honking stopped.

I suppose that the moral of this story is that before you think ill of someone, make sure it's not your roommate's car just going berserk.