Saturday morning, I was out running errands, when I noticed that the air-conditioning in my car wasn’t quite pulling its weight. Interesting. Still, I continued on my way, now and then putting my hand over the vent, to see if it was my imagination or not. It wasn’t.
Then, I’m turning onto Mill Road, when my car starts beeping at me. What the hell? I’m looking at my dash, but can’t see anything lit up. Now, I’m really starting to get hot under the collar. I pull over in a shady spot and, with the glare gone, I can see that the temperature light is on. I look at the gauge, and it’s almost on “H”, so I put the heat on high and open the windows (an old trick my dad taught me). As the arrow on the temperature gauge slowly drifts down, so does my mood.
I think back to an incident that happened a couple of weeks ago, heading off to my book club. See, we usually take the summer off, and this was to be our last get together until September. Instead of meeting at night, we were going to do a Saturday cookout-type thing. You know, review our year, vote for our favorite book, worse ending, best love scene, etc. I didn’t want to rush around too much in the morning, so being all organized like I am, I’d made this nice potato salad the night before.
So mid-day Saturday, I’m all dressed and ready to go. I grab the bowl from the fridge, and as I turn it somehow hits the fridge door, slips out of my hand and down it goes, smash! The green ceramic bowl from my grandmother’s set, one of my all time favorites, shattered into a million pieces and my beautiful potato salad is kaput. Scamp, alerted by my questionable language, runs in to investigate.
“No!” goes Charlie, “you get back!” Scamp retreats to supervise from under the kitchen table, and Charlie, bless his heart, calmly helps me deal with the mess, piece by piece.
“Don’t worry, Hon. We’ll find you another one of these bowls at a yard sale or something.”
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and now I’m gonna have to improvise, pick something up on the way. There’s no getting around it, I’m going to be late, which doesn’t sit well with me.
“Why don’t you just go?” suggests Charlie. “I’ll deal with the rest of it.”
“No, no.”
As I ladle my not-so-beautiful potato salad into another bowl, I hear myself thinking, Well, isn’t this is going to be a crappy day! Then, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Get a grip, Ida! Are you seriously going to let something like this ruin a perfectly good day? Charlie’s right: it’s just a bowl, for God’s sake. You can find another one on Ebay. And the potato salad is just potato salad. Start your day over, dear. Stop at the Busy Bee on your way and buy some cinnamon rolls, the ones with the maple icing, and no one’s going to miss your salad. I ended up doing just that and, of course, I had a great time. Plus, I had a husband to brag about.
So I’m sitting in my car with the heat blasting, the windows open, hot and hotter air whipping all around, when it come to me that this was the same kind of situation. Again, I have two options: I can let this ruin my day or I can start over. Either way, I have to deal with the situation. Might as well do it happy.
I drive over to Tiger’s Garage, (“Where the service is always Grrreat!”). Tiger’s been Tiger for so long, I don’t think his own mother knows his real name. Anyhoo, by chance he was open, and said he’d take a look at it. His girlfriend, Danielle, happened to be dropping off his lunch, so she was able to give me a ride home. Didn’t even have to bother Charlie.
Tiger got right on it. Turns out one of the cooling fans froze. He had to order the part, but later today, my car should be good as new. Thank goodness it acted up when it did. Thursday, I have to go to Bangor for a dentist appointment, and if my car started acting funny on that lonesome stretch of road, it would have been scary as all get out.
You know what? Saturday ended up being a pretty good day, after all. I got most of my errands done, and the ones I didn’t weren’t that important, anyways. I ended up having some catch up time at home. I reorganized a few drawers and dusted.
That night, Charlie and me had a date night, my treat. I says to him, “I never did thank you proper for being such a good guy when I broke that green bowl. How ‘bout I take you out to Bonanza for supper?”
“It’s a deal. And you play your cards right, I’ll treat you to a Peanut Buster Parfait after.”
“Sweet talker.”
That’s if for now. Catch you on the flip side!
IDA's PODCAST: Not a Crappy Day Option
Upcoming Shows & Book Events: Summer
July 1 Reading, Brooksville Free Library, 6:30 p.m., Brookville, ME
July 8, Reading, Belgrade Public Library, 6:00 p.m., Belgrade, ME
July 14 Reading, Freeport Community Library, 7:00 p.m., Freeport, ME
July 22, Reading, Bailey Public Library, 6:30 p.m., Winthrop, ME
August 9 A Visit With Ida, Storytelling by the Sea, 7:15 p.m., Castine, ME
August 14 Ida’s Havin’ a Yard Sale, ACT ONE Festival 2014, 8:00 p.m., Portsmouth, NH
August 15 Ida’s Havin’ a Yard Sale, ACT ONE Festival 2014, 2:00 p.m., Portsmouth, NH
August 19 Reading, Southwest Harbor Public Library, 5:30 p.m., Southwest Harbor, ME
September 4 Ida’s Havin’ a Yard Sale, ACT ONE Festival 2014, 8:00 p.m. Portsmouth, NH
September 5 Ida’s Havin’ a Yard Sale, ACT ONE Festival 2014, 2:00 p.m. Portsmouth, NH
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