Who hasn\u2019t had a day when nothing went right?\u00a0 You know what kind of day I mean.\u00a0 You wake up and brush your teeth with 2% hydrocortisone cream instead of toothpaste.\u00a0 Oh, you\u2019ve never done that?\u00a0 Well, I have.\u00a0 The aftertaste in my mouth was most unpleasant, but I can honestly say that my pearly whites haven\u2019t itched for so much as a single minute since that unintended application.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t suppose you have ever worn a tan shoe on one foot and a red shoe on the other, either.\u00a0 If not, then bully for you.\u00a0 I have.\u00a0 Fortunately, this didn\u2019t happen on the same day that I failed Elementary Tooth brushing, or I would have felt like a complete and utter dunce.\u00a0 It did occur, however, on the very day that I left my wallet on the kitchen counter, leaving me without the cash or credit card necessary to put gas in the nearly empty tank of my car.\u00a0 Pulling into the gas station on fumes, I asked the attendant to fill \u2018er up.\u00a0 What seemed like several million dollars later, he pulled out the hose, whereupon I discovered that I was flat broke.\u00a0 I jumped out of the car, unstrapped my baby from his car seat, and went into the office to explain my plight to the station owner.\u00a0 I was afraid the guy would ask me to leave my fourth-born as collateral while I went home to fetch my wallet.\u00a0 Fortunately for me, he didn\u2019t much care to babysit for a wet and cranky six-month-old, but I\u2019m pretty sure he might have considered calling Child Protection Services on me when he noticed my mismatched shoes and state of agitation.<\/p>\n
One bad day doesn\u2019t a bad life make, but a string of them can certainly put a damper on one\u2019s spirits.\u00a0 The summer of 1981 was, for me, filled with a huge blessing followed by such a string of misfortunes that I\u2019ll never forget it.\u00a0 On July 24, our third child, Devon, was born.\u00a0 She was a beauty, if I do say so myself, and a good baby, to boot.\u00a0 Two days before she was born, my then-husband called me with \u201cgood news\u201d and \u201cbad news.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhich would you like to hear first,\u201d he asked me.\u00a0 \u201cThe bad,\u201d I replied. \u00a0He informed me that his employer was closing its New York office and was firing all but two of its 200+ employees.\u00a0 The good news was that he was one of the two who would stay to attend to the closing of the office, a job that might take as much as three months\u2014time enough for him to secure another job.<\/p>\n
Three weeks after Devon was born, while we left her and our two toddlers very briefly in the care of a sitter, my husband and I crossed the street to attend the second wedding and backyard reception of a neighbor.\u00a0 Some days later, my neighbor called to inform me that we had been exposed to infectious hepatitis at the reception.\u00a0 One of the caterers had a rip-roaring case and everyone at the wedding had to be informed.\u00a0 We got the message a little later than desirable:\u00a0 The bride\u2019s son came down with it and so did my husband.\u00a0 Because he couldn\u2019t go to work, we decided to have him recuperate at a remote New England summer cottage we had bought on our honeymoon, years before, as an investment.\u00a0 The house had paid for itself from day one with rental income, but we had an unexpected cancellation by the last renters of the season.\u00a0 When we arrived, my husband\u2019s jaundice was somewhat improved, but he was still rather sallow.<\/p>\n
A few days passed rather peacefully but, after returning from the beach one afternoon, we realized that the water heater was off.\u00a0 On lighting the pilot, there was a loud \u201cpoof\u201d and an even louder scream\u2026from the only adult male in the vicinity.\u00a0 A so-called \u201cpuff-back\u201d had burned off both of my husband\u2019s eyebrows.\u00a0 He also sustained small patches of first- and second-degree burns to his cheeks and chin, and burns from his hands to his elbows.\u00a0 Our house was on an island some eleven miles from the nearest mainland hospital, but the island\u00a0did<\/span>boast an island clinic, complete with a doctor who had received his medical degree approximately three minutes before he treated my husband.\u00a0 He bandaged hubby up about as well as Devon might have done, then called the airport to have him transported to the mainland.\u00a0 My brother flew over the following day to help me get home with the three kids.<\/p>\n About 10 days later, the hubster had landed a new job, secured through his professional network and with only a perfunctory telephone interview.\u00a0 He reported on the first day without any eyebrows and with gauze bandages on his arms.\u00a0 His jaundice was, by then, barely noticeable, but he had been unable to shave portions of his face, so he presented quite a picture.\u00a0 Makes my bad day look tame by comparison, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n Years later we were able to look back on that summer and laugh about it, much like we laughed about our fun-filled move from New York to Georgia, during which someone flushed the car keys down a toilet midway into our trip.\u00a0 \u201cWhere are the spare keys?\u201d I was asked.\u00a0 \u201cIn a spare handbag packed in a box headed to Georgia in a great big moving van,\u201d I replied.\u00a0 After an expensive emergency call to a locksmith, we, with three of our four children, a large dog named Jack, a tranquilized male cat, and a mama gerbil with about a dozen brand-new pink babies\u2014not to mention a station-wagon load of luggage\u2014headed farther south.\u00a0 Somewhere along Interstate 85, the cat awoke from his tranked stupor and sprayed the entire car with an unmistakable feline stench.\u00a0 We were not happy campers, to say the least, for the remainder of the trip.<\/p>\n Like any semi-normal human being, I consider all of the above to be minor catastrophes, irritating (and even worrisome) as all H-E-double chopsticks when they occur but amusing\u2014even laugh-out-loud funny\u2014when recalled.\u00a0 May all of\u00a0your<\/span>catastrophes this day and in the coming days be minor ones.\u00a0 Keep them in the recesses of your mind, but\u00a0do<\/span>trot them out when a genuine calamity takes place.\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019ll feel much better; that\u2019s a promise.<\/p>\n This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.<\/span>” mce_’ + path + ‘\\” + prefix + ‘:’ + addy7847 + ‘\\’>’+addy_text7847+'<\\\/a>’; \/\/–><\/p>\n Follow us on Twitter – @DigiPrintNews<\/p>\n