Missing an Exit

Driving down the freeway, deep in her thoughts,
she overshot her intended off ramp.
"Stupid," she thought. "Miles to the next exit,
and I am already much, much too late."
She hadn't noticed the police action
at the bottom of the missed exit ramp.

She took the next exit successfully,
and directly made for the turnaround.
But she couldn't go back the other way;
a dozen emergency vehicles
barred the access road. She was diverted
into the parking lot of a strip mall.

Then, as she reached the boiling point, thinking,
"Dear God, what did I do to deserve this?",
she saw, just entering the coffee shop,
the very person she was late to meet.
She hurried inside and found that she was
still able to have her job interview.

Years later, as company president,
asked by a young reporter the secret
of her stellar success in "a man's job,"
she calmly overlooked the naïve man's
prejudiced gaffe, thought for a few moments,
and replied, "Just that I missed my exit."

Copyright ©2019, Paul H. Harder II

This poem is licensed under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.