Remember to BREATH

Have you ever had those mornings, where things seem good at the start, but progress downward quickly? That was my morning this morning.

I had some lab samples that needed to be dropped off at the lab (another blog…..maybe) and this morning was rolling around nicely, I thought I could just drop it off on my way to work. I headed out the door around 7:05, got in the car and noticed that I didn’t have much gas, so I nixed the lab idea (which was out of my way, anyways) and decided to go to Starbucks for a Grande latte and their sausage/egg mcmuffin thingy instead (since I hadn’t had breakfast yet, and I wasn’t going to the lab anyways). NOTE: I need to be at work at 8am, and my drive is about 45 min. I get my order in, chat with my friendly barista, get my latte and…wait, where’s my mcmuffin thingy? So I mention to my friendly cashier that I hadn’t received my mcmuffin thingy…”oopps, so sorry, it’ll be just a minute” as she puts it in the super zapper. Zap it goes and I’m happily on my way down the freeway the 25 miles to my work when my FUEL light goes on. Now I don’t know about you, but I have few phobias, but running out of gas is a BIGGIE for me. Just ask my husband, I relentlessly ask for reassurance when we go on road trips that there is enough gas, we'll be gassing up soon, ect… (long story on the cause of this one). Anyhooo, so I figure I can stop on my way to get gas, thinking ahead of the exits and planning on the one to get off that I KNOW there’s a station at. At this point I’m perspiring a bit – panic tends to do that to a person, but manage to get off the freeway and locate my savior – the Chevron Station. Yippee, I made it! I pull into the driveway to find it being blocked by the tanker truck filling it up. I now need to do a 9 point turn to maneuver my big monster of car around to get myself out of this pickle I’m now in and around to another entrance way. So I manage this in only 5 points (quite proud of my maneuvering skills at this point) and am now being blocked by another car trying to enter this entrance that I’m trying to exit – (blood pressure starting to rise….) I’m now jumping the curb to let this idiot special person onto the driveway. I find another entrance, pull up to a pump and swipe my card (it’s now 7:57am and I realize that my cell phone is dead…thank you son for taking my phone off the charger Saturday before it was charged(yet another story). Misread – please swipe card again. WTF! Do we not know that we are in a hurry? So I swipe again, and again …please see attendant. Off I storm into the minimart to see the cashier. So we do the swipy thing another ½ dozen times, when she decides that that pump is not functioning correctly. HOLY MOTHER OF ….. (I don’t know…don’t swear, so don’t know what to put in the ……)*** BREATH *** Wait…there’s an empty pump behind me, I can just back up….wait no, someone just pulled in behind me. I’ll need to pull around to where Mr. Tanker -truck is and use one of those pumps (which of course I’ll need to use my now infamous maneuvering skills) to get into and out of this space. *** AHHHH, BREATH *** as the gurgle of gas fills my empty tummy of a gas tank. Knowing that I’m already 10 minutes late to work, with no phone to call them, I only fill the tank ½ ways and maneuver my way back out of the Chevron parking lot and back onto the freeway. ***AHHH, BREATH (with the help of Enya)****** The remaining 10 minute drive I Breathed and was thankful that 1) I had breakfast, 2) that I had enough gas to get myself to work and home, 3) that I had a job to get myself to, 4) that I can BREATH and LAUGH!!! What simple plans I had, my, how they snowballed into an interesting morning!

I realized that I have grown…I would have let those series of events ruin my day. My entire DAY! But even during the frustration of the morning, I found myself laughing at my circumstances, knowing that that darn “Murphy” of “Murphy’s Law” was having a field day with me…I was long overdue!