CODE YELLOW WINS SECOND PLACE

In Colorado Romance Writer's Heart of the Rockies Contest. Thanks judges!!! Yay me!!! Now I wait until I get the judges' comments back and edit any needed changes.

BLUSH AND CRINGE
One day in nursing school, we had a mock disaster drill where we were assigned injuries and had to pretend to be whatever our injuries were. My friend was "unconscious" so all she had to do was lay on the gurney and feign sleep (only she REALLY fell asleep). The slip of paper I got said "compound fracture of the right radius and ulna bones, multiple contusions and bleeding lacerations of the forehead and right cheek." So I sat there in the chair while my instructor and fellow students put red makeup all over my face and drew bruises and cuts across my face with various colors of eyeliner. We'd had kentucky fried chicken for lunch. I was one of the most injured. The VA nurses and doctors had to figure out what was wrong with us without the use of the "injury slips" we got. So my makeup artists cut my shirt sleeve, taped four broken chicken bones to my arm, making it look like both bones in my right forearm were broken and poking through the skin (yes there was fake blood and all) and poured ketchup all over my shirt sleeve. After the disaster drill was over, my instructor wanted to take pictures back at school so she asked us not to fix our injuries just yet. So yes, I had to drive home like that. Fake bruises and blood covering my face, and those ridiculous stinky bones on my arms. I had parked in front of the national guard armory. When I got back to my car, there were about two dozen soldiers standing on the sidewalk. I had to walk through them to get to my car. As if that wasn't embarrassing enough, two of them were sitting on my car hood when I got to my car. I politely ignored the snickers and stares and tried to get my key in my lock. After several attempts, my face is red without the ketchup. One soldier slips off my hood, walks up and asks if he could help me. "No. I've almost got it," I say. To my horror, he keeps standing there.

Laughing. "Are you sure you don't need help getting into this car?" he asks as the soldiers behind him laugh in chorus.

"No. I'm fine." I really wish he'd leave me alone. I mean, what does this guy think, that just because I'm blonde and female that I'm not capable of unlocking a simple car door? But then again, I wonder, why won't this stupid key work? And of course EVERYONE is STILL staring at me.....and snickering.

That's when I notice there is a ball cap on the dash that doesn't belong to me. Just as I begin to wonder whose cap is in my car, I wonder where the stack of papers, books, and various other clutter that should be in my car. I realize this car does not look like Sandford and Son's.

I realize this isn't my car at all. Now I'm about to cry because I'm so shy and these men are all laughing at me and I feel like a complete dork, not only because of the car but because I have Kentucky fried chicken bones growing from my arms like leeches, dried ketchup on my Dokken shirt and all over my face, smeared makeup because it sprinkled on the way back to my car, and a very bad hair day. (GImme a break, it was in the 80's. Every day was a bad hair day.)

Once more, the soldier asks, "Are you sure you don't need help getting that door open?"

With face, flaming red, I turn to face him, mortified. He steps over and opens the door.

"It's your car?" I ask. He nods. I turn on my heel and franticly search for my car, finding it three cars down, identical to his, exept for the license plate and the fact that mine could use a good washing.

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VERSE
For surely, O Lord, You bless the righteous; You surround them with Your favor as with a shield. Ps 5:12 NIV

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BORROWED PRAYERS
Dear Lord,
Infuse us with a hunger for time with you. Strenghten the bonds of our communication and communion. Help us to love you like you love us.

Blessings!

Squirrel