Just One of Those Things

I told my friend I'd call her and we'd decide on a date for lunch. I then got the flu and was sick as a dog. Lyig in bed, flat on my back, the phone rang and my friend said, from the restaurant, "For goodness sake, where are you? I thought we were meeting for lunch." Well, I still don't remember that we had set a definite date, but she insists we did. Of course I couldn't help wondering if that was a sign of early dementia on my part.

Then right in the middle of my novel writing one day, and in quite an exciting chapter (I thought), suddenly my printer stopped working. I tried everything to get it going again, but no luck, so finally I called the printer company. Their technician couldn't solve the problem either, so he said they'd send me a new printer. I thanked him and a few days later, just out of curiosity, tried the printer again and you guessed it--suddenly the darn thing worked just fine. I immediately called the printer company back to cancel the order, but too late; a new printer was already on the way.  The nice young man on the other end of the line said when the printer arrived I must find the return slip, fill it out, and arrange for a pickup, easier said than done. To find the return slip, which naturally was at the very bottom of this huge box, I had to unpack everything first which was quite a  job in itself. I thought of keeping the new printer, just in case something went wrong again, but was told that unless I wanted to be charged for another printer I had to repack and send the first one back. By then I was quite frustrated, as you can imagine. But finally I managed to get everything squared away and thought I could relax, only to learn that was wishful thinking.

To my dismay Hurricane Irene was on its way! I was without lights and power for several days, and some in my state, Connecticut, are still in the dark, so I know I'm lucky. But flipping a light switch and nothing happens in a sobering experience. Makes you appreciate what those people who lived in the days of "Little House on the Prairie" went through daily and survived. At least I didn't lose my home or my livelihood as many did during the storm and I'm very thankful for that. I think the biggest challenge was keeping my sense of humor. Kept telling myself as I munched on peanut butter sandwiches for dinner and tried to read by flashlight that this, too, would pass--and it did. After all, it was just one of those things.