Broken Shoelaces

You know, some days things just don't break your way.  It's nothing personal; happens to everybody.  This happened to me last week, almost immediately after posting my first day of spring "lalalalala, trip through the flowers" remarks.  There's nothing like realizing that, as a fully-grown adult, you've forgotten how to read the gas gauge to cause you to tuck into a big ol' slice of humble pie.  And I'd really run out of gas - if "F" stands for "full" and "E" stands for "empty," the needle of my tank was so far over on the left that it should have read "D" (for "duhhh").  Dorothy Parker was right - it's not the tragedies that kill us, it's the messes.  Or, as I've put it, give me a legitimate crisis and I'm fine, it's the broken shoelace that'll send me screaming into the night.

So - silver linings.  First, I was safely at home, not on the side of a darkened, shoulder-less road.  A friend kindly gave me a lift to work.  Another friend dropped off a gallon of gas at my house.  A third friend gave me a lift home and even followed me to the gas station to make sure I got there - just in case.  And no one I talked to made me feel like a colossal moron because I'd run out of gas.

Lessons learned?  Friends are good.  It's okay to ask for help.  And fill up the tank when it hits the half-way mark.  Nothing earth-shattering, but sometimes we need to be reminded of the small stuff - after all, it's mostly what life is made up of.