Ever have so much Big Life Circus Stuff happen that you forget about the little things?
Those moments of irk that would've been the News of the Week, or at least the Gripe of the Moment, but given the Big Life Circus, they are forgotten and buried?
Here's a tribute post. A reminder to be grateful for the quickly forgotten-until-they're-not ordinary aggravations, in no particular order:
· My laptop occasionally flashes five black screens with strange code, collapses all the screens, and then we both pretend I didn't see what just happened.
· This library is a bit loud today, so Little Miss Muse doesn't want to spend time at the keyboard and prefers eavesdropping, calling it "dialogue research."
· I can feel the seam inside my right sock.
· I cannot remember to change the bulb in the hall outside my office because of how infrequently I need that light.
· Traffic was remarkably slow this morning in a tiny town that shouldn't have traffic because there's really nowhere to be.
· The main road to my house was closed for days due to a water main break.
· The A/C repair guy took ten hours to show up in a four-hour service window.
· Kroger got rid of my favorite ice cream.
· The delivery guy left a package of paperbacks out in the rain when there was a covered overhang three feet away.
· The laptop just now right this second did that thing with the coded black screens again. And it and I will pretend nothing happened.
· I can feel the care tag inside the collar of my t-shirt, and it's the kind that doesn't rip out easily. I don't have scissors with me, and I don't want to go to the librarian to ask for some because I'd also have to ask her to cut out the tag.
· My favorite cat fell out of a window screen and wanted to be caught, but didn't like the crunching noise the gravel in the landscaping made, so perhaps she wants to be an outside kitty, but please, please, please, catch me and put me inside with my chirpy pumpkin toy, please. The rescue rendered me somewhat bloody.
· My second-favorite cat snagged my favorite pair of pants, rendering them unwearable in public and me somewhat bloody.
· My third-favorite cat snagged my shoulder, rendering a hole in the shirt and me more than somewhat bloody.
· While moving furniture for spring cleaning, an unknown number of cats (up to three) found up to five locations to gift me hairballs.
· Most of my coping mechanisms have a high calorie count.
· All of my other coping mechanisms have a high price tag and/or require a plane ticket.
· Little Miss Muse keeps staring out the window at the guy weed-whacking instead of at the laptop screen, or she, too, could ignore what the laptop just flashed. AGAIN.
· I can now feel the seam inside my left sock.
As I think about this list compared to the one I'd write if I were a columnist for The Big Top Gazette, I feel… blessed?
Blessed enough to notice irky annoyances and to consider some of them luxurious?
Well. Maybe not the blood.
Or the hairballs.
Or the sock seams.
But the fact that my brain can log blood, hairballs, and sock seams seems to be a step in the right direction.
Even though I’m well aware that I’m clocking annoyances while balancing on the high wire and the circus tent’s on fire…
