#1261 third Thursday: tacos and texting

The third Thursday of every month is a big day at my office. We start off the day with a department safety meeting and then the management team prepares lunch for the group. We've been doing the safety meeting part for several years, but we added the lunch this summer.

There are usually five or six of us who work on the lunch. We plan the menu, shop for the items, prepare the meal and clean up afterwards. Usually not all of us can be involved in all the parts of the meal, but we always pull it off. We've had the standard hamburgers and hot dogs, but we really like to have new and different things. There is a really nice gas grill out on the patio of the office, so when the weather is fine, we want to use it!

Today's lunch was a Mexican fiesta feast! We shopped at Rancho Market, a nice Mexican store that is close to the office. (There are several Rancho Markets in town, including one out here by my house.) We got everything there. On the menu: homemade rice and refried beans, guacamole, homemade salsa and carne asada tacos with fajita style onions and peppers, cilantro, lime and cotija cheese on corn or flour tortillas.  I took part in planning, shopping, clean up and I also got to cook the carne asada on the grill. It was easy because the steak is so thin and cooks really fast.

It was a hit! Everyone seemed to really like it and we had a lot of fun doing it, too. I'm sure there's going to come a time when we can't come up with really delicious ideas for third Thursday lunch, but we've done well so far. Other nice meals were grilled chicken sandwiches with bacon and guacamole and we also did a smoked pulled pork sandwich that was pretty spectacular.

The safety topic that was presented today was very powerful. The topic was texting while driving and I thought the presenters, Abby and Bill, did a really nice job. They started out with a hand-out that gave a bunch of statistics about the dangers of texting while driving. We read through the material, then they showed us a video that I was frankly thankful was pretty pixilated so we couldn't get a good image. It was from England or Australia and it showed four teenage girls in a car. The driver was texting and not paying much attention to the road. Her car drifted into on-coming traffic and collided with another car. In that car was a family: a mom, a dad and two little kids. The mom and dad were killed instantly. The little kids were saying, "Mummy! Daddy! Wake up!" In the texter's car, all three of her friends were killed. The driver was injured. It was horrible.

The next part of their presentation was to remind us of the reasons we should not text while driving. Everyone had given them photos of their loved ones, and the photos flashed on the screen. In between photos, they played voice messages they had collected from our families. One lady's mom left a message to her daughter. Another lady's daughters left a message for their mom. One lady's fiancee left her a message. We were all crying.

At the end we watched another video about a 19 year old guy here in Utah who was texting while driving. He was driving on a two-way highway and drifted over the center line, clipping an oncoming car, causing them to lose control and cross over into his lane. A pick-up truck pulling a trailer did not have time to avoid the car and crashed into the car, killing both passengers. The texter's actions affected four families: his own, because he was sent to prison, the families of the people that were killed and the guy who crashed into the car.

I'll tell you, I have been thinking about that presentation all day. I always have my beloved iPhone nearby when I'm driving, although I haven't texted while I was driving. I think what hit so close to home was that many of the statistics involved teenagers and since T will be driving soon, it really freaks me out. I trust that he will do the right thing and put his phone away, but like in the first video, where the girl was with her friends, the driver was not killed, but her friends were. It's a nightmare.

I told all of this to MT and T while we were eating dinner tonight. I was a sobbing, slobbery mess which I'm sure turned them off from really hearing what I was trying to say. I really can't imagine my life without either one of them and I pleaded with them to not ever text and drive. Just put the phone away. Just because we have the mobile device doesn't mean we have to deal with it every time it rings, pings or dings. We certainly didn't always answer the phone when we had a land-line. And what can you really do for someone when you are driving?

Tonight on my way home, I put my phone in my bag and put it in the back seat of my car where I couldn't reach it. I did hear it ping and buzz, but I figured whatever was going on could wait until I got where I was going (the gym!) and I could respond then, if necessary.

So I send this thought out to anyone reading this:

If you are a family member, please know that I love you very much and I would be so, so sad if anything happened to you. Please don't text and drive. Put your phone away while you are driving, please.

If you are a friend, please know that your friendship is very important to me and I care about you a lot. Please put your phone away while you are driving.

If you are just stopping by this blog because the catchy title caught your eye or because you have read some of my rambling before, thank you for reading. It's kind of thrilling to think that someone I don't even know might be a little interested in what I have to say. I know that there are people in your life that love and care about you. Please put your mobile phone away while you are driving.

Sorry to sound preachy; I try not to get too deep, but it's on my mind today and I just wanted to pass the message along.

Talk to you tomorrow!