"Don't wait on me! Just go away, OK?!" I hissed, exasperated with my husband. I was at the gym, on the treadmill, on the home stretch to finishing the 5K program when he came over and wanted to talk (how much did I have left, should he wait for me, what's for dinner, was I going to the grocery store tonight?). He accidentally knocked the on-off switch and caused the program to reboot. I was going to beat my best (treadmill) 5K time and I really really wanted to know what my average pace was going to be, not to mention the calories and the satisfaction of seeing that "100% complete" scroll across the screen. I know, it's silly, like checking something off a list... It really only matters that the task was completed, not that it was checked off, but still!
To be completely honest, I called him a name first.
I had a bad day. There was a wreck on the way to work, the highway was down to one lane. I was feeling proud of myself for not being too upset with the delay and I got to right in front of the wreck and a red Audi came out of nowhere and cut me off! I had to brake so that I didn't hit her, even though I was only going like 5 miles per hour. I honked. Why, oh why, do drivers put other people at risk just to get ONE car length ahead?! Is it worth it?
I got to work, promptly did a task that was on my calendar, only to find out a few hours later that I was a week early! I had to send out the embarrassing "Just kidding..." email. If someone else did that, I'd laugh, I'd say we are all human! I didn't allow myself the same grace, I beat myself up over it for the rest of the morning!
Then, this afternoon, I was on a roll. I had several files open and I was doing some pretty tedious formatting, playing with the design and layout, and making the pages match... I was stretching my feet (without my shoes on), wiggling my toes, arching my back, and BAM! I hit the off switch on the power strip with my big toe! I put my head in my hands and told myself not to cry! I'd just lost the past 45 minutes of work... I considered whining to someone, but thought better of it (mostly from embarrassment) and grumpily tried to salvage my files.
When my husband accidentally rebooted the treadmill, the frustration from the day just about made me cry. Why did this day just keep getting worse? Why does it feel like I'm a character in a sitcom and all these crazy things keep happening to me!
Between work and the gym I stopped at the library. There was a line. I had one book on CD (audio books are a great way to keep the road rage to a minimum), and a lady with two kids in front of me had an armful and each kid had books. I wonder if she saw me look around at the other kiosks to see if any other line was shorter. This sweet lady said, "You can go in front of us, we aren't in a hurry." She was almost whispering and I felt really loud when I replied in a normal decibel, "Thank you!" I rushed through the checkout and thanked her again, feeling a tinge of remorse for being the one "in a hurry". Did she think I was rude?
That was the nicest thing that happened to me all day! She was being the nice car, letting me cut in front of her, and earlier I'd honked when someone jumped in front of me! It's really not worth getting so upset about the rebooting of a computer... or a treadmill... I'm sorry, husband, for getting upset over the treadmill.
To use a cliché from the Spanish language, "mejor mañana", it will be better tomorrow.
