Today was a day when I had to try and live up to the rather holier- than-thou attitude of my previous post where I talked about the members of the choir and how I hoped that by thinking of the NIU shooting they would be a little less inclined to dwell on the frustrations of tour. We gain some much needed perspective, I said, when we think about something other than our own frustrations or disappointments.
And then what happened? I had a day as piled high with frustration as any I can remember. It was thanks to my car and its failing grade at the emissions testing facility. My ticket on Sunday for expired registration meant that I had to get that situation rectified, so I brought my car in today at 8 am to be serviced. I was told that if everything went smoothly, I would be out of there in just over an hour. THREE AND A HALF HOURS LATER, and three hundred fifty dollars later, I drove off with the hope that my car was ready to pass the emissions test. But I hoped in vain – I failed again the emissions test again – and when I returned to Honda with my grade sheet for some clarification, I was told that the only solution to the problem was to replace my transmission.
Great.
Thirty minutes later, I walked into the Yard Arm to meet kathy and her family for supper and the only thing that kept me from climbing up on the grill with the burgers was hearing that everybody else in the family had been dealing with some pretty rotten headaches of their own. It was also nice to have precious little Lorelai smiling and laughing. She knows nothing at this point about failed emissions or income tax or crumbling retaining walls – and being in her ever-delighted presence tonight was a gift.
And as I sat there under my cloud of doom and gloom, fully incapable of escaping it, I realized that as much as I like to pontificate about counting one’s blessings and not dwelling on one’s problems, it’s much easier to talk about that when life is wonderful. The real test is if we are ready and willing and able to count our blessings when our troubles are piling up.
The next time I’m slammed by an unpleasant surprise, I hope I will manage to surmount it more successfully than I did this time around.
pictured: the waiting room at the Honda service center, where i spent three and a half hours today. By the way, it was interesting to eavesdrop on the exchanges between staff and customers. . . and it sounded so much like a hospital waiting room. “Well, we seem to have figured out the problem. You have a &&&& misfiring in your %%%% but we were able to replace it with a new #### and you should be good to go.” “That’s good news. Thank you so much !”