MONDAY DIARY: ALMOST EXCRUCIATINGLY TRUE STORIES: WHY WE NEED GUARDIAN ANGELS

So you remember posts in the past about Mother Mary Thomas at the Conversion of Saint Paul Shrine in Cleveland and how she has been working on this ginormous painting.  I have been keeping you up to date on it.  Well, now it is almost finished save for a final coat of shellac.

So this past week I went to visit Mother with a friend of mine who is in law enforcement.  Here is a picture of Mother and me on that day.  I look pretty calm no?

But here is what happened on the way getting there.  As we were driving and pretty close to arriving - meaning that we were on the east side of Cleveland, it suddenly occurred to me . . . 

We ALWAYS bring chocolate for Mother.  I meant to stop and buy some on the way but it just didn't turn out.  We were not in an area that we knew very well but decided to stop and at the first place we could find and buy something.  We saw a store - a less than ideal store - but a store none-the-less and my co-pilote suggested that I stay in the car with the engine running and he would pop in and buy the chocolate.

I sat in my car fiddling with my phone and saw a car with some youths pull up behind me. Something seemed strange - a bit off - but hey - what do I know?  And I went back to looking at my phone.  Next thing I know, my friend in law enforcement was at my window and the car that was behind me high tailed it out of there.

"Those guys were about to car jack you Father," he informed me.  "It was a lucky thing that I didn't have any cash on me and they didn't accept credit cards and I had to come out and ask you for money.  If I had been seconds later, there may have been bullets!"

I kind of took it in stride.  I couldn't wait to find someone to tell about it.  The first couple of people I ran into I even forgot to tell!  It really didn't seem that big of a thing I guess.  Until two in the morning.