This was a dream come true for my parents.

My parents were great adventurers. They had pretty much seen everything and been everywhere. But this one last stop meant the world to them.

They were distracted. And who can blame them? How often is a lifelong wish granted?

Obviously, if you’d asked either one of them, they would have adamanty professed that the safety of their youngest daughter was more important to them than anything, including this. And I believe that they meant it too. But somehow they were so excited and distracted by their dream that they didn’t see my camel driver slipping away with me.

I watched in horror as my parents continued on towards the great pyramids, and I was being taken somewhere else. Logic would have told me to scream and make a scene, but I was a stupid teenager and it didn’t even occur to me that that was an option. I just froze and rode the camel to wherever it was being driven.

Fortunately, I wasn’t just stupid–I was lucky, too. How many little girls live to tell such a story? I wasn’t hurt. I wasn’t even touched. My camel driver didn’t want me, he just wanted money, which I didn’t have. But my daddy did, and if he would kindly take me back to my family I would see that he got paid. Miraculously, my driver took me back to them.

They didn’t even know I’d been gone.

And now, I’m all grown up. I, too, get distracted. We all do. We sacrifice what matters the most for what’s distracting us in the moment.

My distractions include chocolate, entertainment, vanity, laziness, convenience, being in “too big of a hurry” and so much more.

What distracts you?