One of THOSE days

 

We all know them. We’ve all had them. And we usually wonder why we didn’t pay attention to the warning signs earlier.

Now, in my defense, on this most recent occurrence, it wasn’t an amazingly horrible no good please-when-will-it-end day. And that’s partly because I did pay attention to the signs. Early. I made sure it didn’t get any worse.

It started with a meal for one.

Terry was out, and I decided that a homemade breakfast sandwich would be a good way to begin things. Something that might hold me over all the way to dinner. Kick things off to being productive. I started frying some sausage links, then grabbed a knife and was off to the garden.

If there is only one joy to be found in having a garden, it arrives in August and September, when you can walk right out and pick something literally seconds before adding it to your meal. That is pretty awesome. A pepper, some grape tomatoes, an onion, and things were looking good for my breakfast.

Back into the house, I moved the frying pan with the sausages to the side, put some bread in the toaster oven, and began working on the eggs and veggies.

A short time later, I was walking back to the kitchen from the office, where I had eaten my sandwich while doing a bit of writing. And there… on the stove… was the frying pan. Sausage links still waiting.

I hadn’t just forgotten them. It was a bit stranger than that. I didn’t even notice I had forgotten them while enjoying the sandwich. In retrospect, this was the first clue that I was a bit lost… the sausage and egg sandwich with fresh veggies (and no sausage).

About two hours later, I was out running an errand and realized I had left my wallet at home. And that’s when the dots came together and I realized I needed to be careful. I finished what I was doing, slowly drove back home, put on my pajamas and…

Ok. That’s not exactly how things moved along. I did head home, but I didn’t give up on the day. Missing sausage and a wallet left on a counter are not signs of impending doom and gloom and pull-the-covers-up.

Dog sprayed by a skunk? Flat tire? Tearing your pants? Those are signs of said doom and said gloom.

But, I did take them as warnings. Why? Because they are beyond unusual for me. They were signs that everything was a half-step off for my day. They were signs that I really needed to measure everything twice, so to speak.

Have you ever had one of those runs where you dropped everything? I mean everything.

You go to make a hot chocolate. You take a spoon out of a drawer, don’t have a grip on it, and it falls to the floor. Turn around, grab the cocoa packet, tear it open and the powder goes all over the place. Swearing while grabbing a dustpan and brush, you take a deep breath and clean up. Back to the cocoa.

Another spoon… new cocoa packet emptied into a mug… pot of boiling water retrieved from the stove. (There. Was that so hard?) Feeling better, you smile and decide to add a bit of cream to it, open the container, lose your grip, drop it onto the counter, where it rests on its side with the cream flowing out and onto the floor. You just stand still, staring at the waterfall cascading off the edge of the counter.

Look… what am I describing? You know the days. Those days. THOSE days. You drop everything. You step in everything. You’re five to ten minutes late for everything. And then, once you give up and accept it, hoping to just minimize the damage and get out of it with as little pain as possible, that’s when the muddy dog makes it into the living room and onto the couch… the kids playing in the backyard hit a baseball through the window and into the kitchen… and the dinner cooking on the grill while you cleaned the couch and swept up glass wasn’t really cooking because you’re out of gas. Those you might literally go to bed without dinner days.

I’ve been out of it for a few days. Not phone dropped in the toilet, dinner somehow both frozen and burned at the same time, I can’t believe I drove the lawn mower into the shed out of it. More sausage on the stove out of it. Wallet on the counter out of it.

But Terry will be home soon. Everything will be fine. (I just need to make sure of my steps for the rest of today.)

 

If you have any comments or questions, please e-mail me at Bob@inmybackpack.com