It Was One of Those Days

Yesterday concluded (I hope) a 24 hour period of irritating things.

I should have guessed things were on a bad track when it started withn a big mess at mom’s house. Later that afternoon I tried calling contractors to come out and look at the spreading crack in my family room ceiling, and the unquenchable hole at the front of the garage – I’ve put two small shovels of sand and filled it -- every day for weeks now. Despite the high unemployment, no one was interested in coming out and looking at things. Maybe my house will disappear into giant sinkhole. Oh well, at least the garden is going great.

During the day, I checked my email to find that I had a warning from the Internet Scam Bureau, telling me about some people who had targeted me, but that the Bureau was actively trying to prosecute them. Meanwhile, I was to not open mail from the 10 named individuals. The reason I was being targeted, the Bureau noted, was because of the $10 million in a bank account in Nigeria in my name …… uh oh. Delete!

On the way home, I stopped to pray the rosary, and the mother of one of my Godchildren called. Considering my mom’s situation, did I know much about types and costs of hearing aids? “(Your Godchild) needs a hearing aid, since the operation a few months ago was a failure.” Operation??? Failure??? The 13-year old I pray for daily needs a hearing aid???!! (I spoke politely and answered her questions, as I stifled all my “???” and “!!” ‘s.)

When I got home last night, I saw that my helper had put out the smelly garbage from my garage (thanks!) – but perhaps even the garbage men rejected the smell: the un-emptied can sat in the center of the drive. I put it back in the garage, for another week of aroma when I went out to the car. Entering the house, I heard the voice recording a message on the answering machine: “Your credit card from Bank of America has been compromised. Please call this number so we can advise you of steps we’ve taken to protect you!” … I have no Bank of America credit card. Uh oh. Erase!

Even as I was erasing the scam on the phone, the gas range began a loud beeping noise. You know, kind of like the beeping you see on the cop shows where the terrorist bomb timer has just gotten down to the last 10 seconds and begins to beep loudly and rapidly – and you wonder if there is going to be a big explosion or something. That kind of beeping started, as the display on the range flashed an error code. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I knew not to panic; there was no imminent explosion. This is the 4th time this has happened. In each of the past 3 summers, the touch screen pad on the stove has failed, requiring an $80 repair part – if I did the 2-hour repair myself, AGAIN! I hit the Stop key to cease the noise, glanced at the junk mail I had brought in, and said: “Enough of this day, I’m going to bed.”

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that the stove error beeping and message doesn’t go away. At 4AM, I awoke to a loud beeping, and initial panic that the smoke alarms were going off. No, they weren’t. After I was sufficiently awake, I went down and hit the Stop key again.

I couldn’t fall back to sleep, and so I got up to read my morning prayers and catch up on some magazine reading before morning mass. And as I sat in the reading room, I realized yet another problem which had occurred during the last 24 hours. I was constipated.

Oh well, as I have said numerous times in the past, shit happens. And sometimes it doesn’t.

These are just the cycles of our lives. Don’t fret when bad news hits, even when it hits all at once. It will end. And that end is the beginning of better times. It’s happened to me; it will happen to you.

When things get bad, pray. When they get really bad, laugh. It’s really all you can do to make yourself feel better. And if you can’t laugh, then tell your friends all the bad things happening to you, and they’ll laugh – and you can’t help but to laugh with them. It’s what I do. :-)