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Happy Accidents (aka, HA!)

© David Boyne

Late one sunny morning as I sat under a shade tree at my favorite outdoor café, alternating sips of my second uber-sized coffee with nibbles of my well-toasted onion bagel covered with a schmear of salmon cream cheese and fresh, perfectly peppered slices of tomato, perusing The New York Times and occasionally nudging my sandal-clad foot into my golden retriever who was snoozing on the sidewalk—

—some guy driving past in a cherry red Firebird felt compelled to brake to a hard stop in the middle of the intersection.

He beeped his horn.

I looked up.

He yelled at me, "Hey!"

I yelled back, "Hey!"

He smiled. Then he said, "Don't work too hard!"

And he drove off.

Grinning, sipping my coffee, I recalled when I was growing up, my dad's working-class friends often performed a brief, mysterious ceremony of leave-taking. They told one another: "Don't work too hard!"

I could not help but wonder where my impulsive new friend in the cherry red Firebird was going. Was he going somewhere he wanted to be? With people he enjoyed being with? Was he going to do work that stimulated and satisfied him? Or was he driving away to endure ten hours of numbing monotony in a gray cubicle or a loud factory surrounded by stressed, unhappy people?

After work, would he drive home to...

Read the rest of Happy Accidents, and 8 more hyper-personal essays in the ebook, Happy Accidents!

Was $13,375.95—
Now just $1.95!
(While supplies last)