Assignment: Three Things That Stopped Me in My Tracks - Part 2 of 4

This morning at 9:40 I got a text from my daughter... a plea for help.  She had forgetten a poster she'd made of the element Flourine that she needed for her 8th grade science class today and wanted me to drop it off at the school.  Now I had a decision to make.... do I take the poster to school or not? I had to think for a moment.  For one thing, I want my kids to learn to responsibility and for another she is not allowed to have her cell phone at school.   I allow each of my kids one moment of forgetfulness each school year and she hadn't had an incident like this in over 2 years, but there was still the cell phone issue.  I decided to take the poster to school and deal with the cell phone later.

I got dressed, trudged out to the car and set off for the school.  This is normally about a 10 minute drive, so I thought I had plenty of time leaving the house at 10:10.  I wanted to get to school at the same time she would be checking the office for her poster so I could take the phone home with me.  Then it happened, I got stopped in my tracks by not one, but two freight trains.  The first was moving at a slow but livable speed, but the second was inching along as if it were losing a race with a snail.  At 10:26, it finally came to a stop right in front of me.  Panic set in and I texted my daughter that I was on my way, but stopped by a couple crazy trains.  As soon as I sent the text message, the train began to move again... ever so slowly.  As it crept by one car at a time, I watched the ticking clock.  I know this doesn't help any, but at least I felt as if I was doing something.  Finally the train passed and I sprinted down the road (if you can call 25 mph sprinting) to get the poster to the school no more than 10 mintues late.  I brought it into the office at exactly 10:39.  My daughter had given up on me and headed to class by then.  When I left, the office assured me they would page her over the intercom so she could come retrieve the bright orange monstrocity.

All ended well.  My daughter did get the poster from the school office in time for her presentation and her grades were saved (and, since I'd forgotten all about it, got to keep the cell phone all day too), no thanks to a couple slow trains that got in the way.