I Got People

Everybody has a bad day once in a while.  Even the most prolific planners have things turn south on them from time to time.  And once the first unfortunate event occurs, more inevitably seem to pile on.  It begins raining, then starts pouring.  Before you know it Murphy's Law Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks you in the proverbial face and all bets are off.


An old college friend of mine had a saying that has stuck with me.  Translated from his native Turkish tongue, it went, "An umbrella up the a** cannot be opened."  That was a very graphic and disturbing manner of saying that things can't get any worse.



But some days are so annoyingly bad that they insist on getting worse.  For instance, maybe to you wake up at 7 AM, get your kids off to school, run a bunch of errands and fully intend to get a nap for yourself before you have to work the overnight shift.  Then, things pile up and you never get a chance to lie down, but you figure it's okay because it should be a slow day at work.  Then, you get to work and your supervisor is waiting for you with that reprimand on that technicality from last month.  Then you get notified that somebody else completely misinterpreted something else you did at work and has filed a formal complaint against you.  Suddenly, despite the fact that you are an ideal employee, the events of a single day have caused you to look like a completely incompetent clown.  You manage to make it through the rest of your night, however, staying up twenty-four hours straight and finally return home to your castle...where you find that your dog has been having stomach problems and left his stool in various locations around your home, but most importantly right at the front door so that if he's sleeping when you arrive home, at least a part of him (a bloody, stinky part of him) will be there to greet you when you walk in.


In short, somebody found a way to open the umbrella.


Of course, that might just also be the day that you go upstairs to wake your children for school, the ones who are normally crabby that time in the morning, and find them adorably watching cartoons together beneath the covers of one of their beds.  They might just greet you with the biggest smiles you have ever seen.  And once you do finally get to bed, even though your phone keeps ringing and you keep waking up, maybe your wife made sure the dishes have been cleaned and the house straightened up.  And, knowing that you had a rough day, maybe she goes out of her way to stop at the grocery store and pick a few things up and maybe she treats you to this:

I hope the imagery of the dog stool and the aforementioned umbrella didn't ruin that picture for you.


Of course, if all that happened then you would be reminded of the joy and value of family.  A family who loves you and is there to support you on your worst days.  Then, despite Murphy's Law and all the old negative cliches that you can think of, you will remember that, more important than any of those sayings is this one: "Time, family and steak heal all wounds."


At least that's how I think it goes.