“Century Theaters” by taviamcgrath is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Hey, we all love shortcuts, don’t we? At any rate, I love shortcuts. I love the idea that there’s a path, a way–a quicker way–to get from point A to point B than the path that everybody else is taking. Yeah . . . shortcuts are cool. At least, they’re cool when they work. When they don’t . . . we’ll that’s another story.

Years ago, I was attending a seminary in Kentucky and for the first time in my entire life (at least since I graduated from elementary school)–for the first time in my entire life since elementary school, I was cool and people actually wanted to be around me–even girls. Of course, it was all because I was one of the few people there who had a car and therefore that meant I could drive them places and drop them off at malls and restaurants and come back and get them later so they wouldn’t have to ride the bus or just stay home . . . but hey, like I said, girls wanted to ride in my car with me and whatever their reason, I wasn’t arguing.

Well, one particular day–a day I’ll never forget–ever–a group of us were driving to a movie theater. My friend Rick from New York was in the passenger seat and our friends Kate, from Australia, and Mallory from somewhere in the deep south were in the back seat. I, of course, was driving. And I was on top of the world. I was driving up and down through the hilly, horse-country of Kentucky. They skies were clear blue–cloudless–and I hung my arm out the window and felt especially suave as the wind whipped through my medium-length brown hair: I was a man with women in my car. And they were going to let me go to the movie theater with them. And actually sit by them when we watched the movie. It was a whole new world. And I was clipping along on the very top of it.

That is, until we crested the top of a hill and looked down on the main road that would lead us to the theater and we saw that there was a huge traffic back-up. We were already pushing the limits for time and with this back up, there was absolutely no chance we’d make the movie. Everybody groaned–of course, we were all seminary students, so nobody said anything bad–though, just to shatter your image of seminary students, nobody said “Praise the Lord” either. The girls were sad, Rick was sad and I was depressed. But then I remembered something. There was a short cut I had taken a few weeks ago when I was by myself and this same thing had happened. I had cut through a Piggly Wiggly parking lot, caught a back road and had discovered, on accident, the back entrance to the theater.

Those memories flashed through my mind in an instant and I quickly looked around as we were approaching the traffic jam–ahhh, there it was, the entrance to the parking lot I had cut through–I still had time to make it–If I acted fast.

I put both hands on the wheel, set my jaw, checked my rearview mirror and jerked the car to the right. One of the girls screamed in a high pitched squeel–“What are you doing?” I turned to answer her when I realized it was Rick screaming. The girls were just white-knuckling it in the back seat. I donned my most action-hero-like voice and grumbled “We’re taking a shortcut.” And then I looked in the rearview mirror and made eye-contact with Kate–the girl I was rather interested in–and I said (yes, this all happened)–I said, “I’ll get you to that movie, Kate–don’t you worry.” Oh yeah . . . I lived in some sort of bizarre imaginary world back then and you can see why having girls in my car was a new experience for me.

Anyway, like some kind of renegade cowboy, I nosed my little blue cavalier into that parking lot and I hit the gas. In moments, we were rocketing (at what seemed like 40 miles per hour or so) through that empty parking lot. We were driving past that traffic on the main road like it was standing still. When my passengers saw the driveway exit I was heading for and when they saw the movie theater sign, they got over their initial fear and actually cheered. The girls patted me on the back and said things like “good thinking!” Rick quit squealing and started rubbing his hands together as he estimated that we still had time to get in, get tickets, get popcorn and find good seats before the flick started.

We were riding high. It was moment I’ll never forget–I was the hero–I had navigated our vehicle around the gridlock and had brought us–against all odds–successfully and on-time to our destination. The girls were impressed. I was the captain of that vessel and, for that brief second, I was the captain of our destinies.

But then something happened–as usually is the case for me. You see, I made the mistake of looking into the rearview mirror as we were rocketing toward that driveway that would lead us to the theater. For just a second, I locked eyes with Kate and I winked. (Yeah, just call me John Wayne).

I winked to let her know I had done it–that I had known all along that we’d be fine–that I had made good on my promise to get her to that movie. All that in a little wink that lasted just a split second.

However, unfortunately, at the exact moment, I was winking into the rearview mirror, I should have been looking ahead. If I had, I would have seen the parking lot abutment that was approaching my car at a tremendous speed. You know what these things are right? I know you do, I just don’t know what to call them–they’re the short concrete bumps at the end of each parking space in some parking lots–nothing tall, but definitely something solid.

Anyway, My little blue car hit one of those going . . . I don’t know 20 mph . . . 30 mph . . . 10 mph . . . I have no idea . . . all I remember is that one second, I was winking and the next second my head was smashing into the roof of the car as it went airborne–Dukes of Hazzard style–over the abutment.

That moment was chaos in the car–the girls were tossed all over the place in the back seat, Rick started screaming again–squeeling in a high-pitched, annoying scream–and I . . . Dan Hansen, Seminary student . . . child of God . . . hollered out only one thing. It was a short word, but I said it loudly and really stretched it out (almost as if I were saying it in slow motion) and then, just to be sure I had adequately covered the situation, I said it 5 more times in a row.

Well, somehow, when the car came down, I managed to get it under control and bring it to a stop. Rick was crying, I was shaking and wondering if I had really said what I thought I said out loud. The girls were shaken up and Kate asked me what the heck I was thinking . . . though, again, to taint your image of seminary students, she didn’t use the word “heck.” (But she’s from Australia, so that’s ok. Honestly, I think they even use it in place of “Amen” when they say the Lord’s Prayer).

I tried to regain my composure, but it was impossible. I started edging my car slowly toward the parking lot entrance we had been driving toward before the abutment event, but now the car was making weird thumping and banging sounds. These were not coming from the radio. I checked.

They were coming from somewhere underneath the car. There were problems–big problems–with my car and I was all alone in Kentucky and I didn’t know where to bring it and my car was the only thing making me cool. I said to Rick that we should probably drop by a shop and see if they can find out what’s wrong with the car. The girls asked if we could drop them off at the theater while we did that. And I did. And that was the end of my brief stint as a cool guy on campus. Even after my car was fixed, I never regained cool status–I had been labelled as a moron on the road.

Seminary students can be so cruel.

Anyway, some shortcuts are great. Some really help you get through projects quickly or get to a given location faster than everybody else. Other ones make you look like an idiot, blow your chances with Kate from Australia and cost you about $700 in damage to your car.

Those are the shortcuts I take most often. Next time we’ll discuss how this relates to paint.