I Think I'll Move to Australia

Remember that book? Well, on Monday, I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. I generally have Mondays off, but since we were hosting a dinner to say thank you to all the students who do the hard work for CCM, I swapped my day off.

Coming in on one's day off never gets things started right. The main difficulty of my day was getting t-shirts for our CCMers. I had been in communication with a screen printing company for nearly two weeks. And by "been in communication with," I mean, I had been repeatedly calling them, because the sales person with whom I was working was far from on top of her game. On Friday, she had called and asked if we absolutely needed them by Monday. Monday at 11am, I finally received the proof for the t-shirts that we wanted that day.

The whole day was a back-and-forthing nightmare of logistics and minor panic. And of course, when you are hosting a dinner, you have more logistics to worry about than the t-shirts you had been told it would be "no problem" to receive in time for your event. Our communication culminated when the sales person asked me (and I do not exaggerate here) if we could meet an employee by the side of the highway to pick up the t-shirts.

After we agreed on a 7-11, I breathed in relief over the idea that I would never have to speak to this woman again. We got the t-shirts to CCM barely in time to start handing them out. And then Miriam asked Marianne if all the t-shirts had a double r in "Mary." In fact, they did. In fact, the t-shirt company, which did such excellent business with the College, had spelled our name incorrectly.

That was the final straw on a stressful encounter. And I knew that tomorrow, I was going to have to call the t-shirt company and speak to my favorite sales person again.

Thus was my mental state when I arrived home. Then I pulled open the talk for a retreat this weekend. I had been working on the talk while waiting for my favorite sales person to call back all day. In it, I relived some of my most terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days from last year. Last year, my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days came on days when my students got into fights, ran wild against teachers, came to school with bruises, bullied each other, or revealed horrifying home situations. My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days were ones on which I came home crying to or yelling at God.

Comparatively, this day was not that bad. All I needed was a little perspective on it. If my problem is with an order of 70 t-shirts to give as gifts, how blessed am I? I wish my perspective had come in time to brighten my day. I wish it had come in time to help me smile better at the Board members who came to set up for the dinner. I wish it had come in time to keep me from snapping at the Bloom-Lion cashier. But now that I have it, it gives me something to keep in mind in the future. When my biggest problems are with t-shirts, life is good.