Life is full of small disasters. I’m not talking about the big, drawn-out, horrifying ones, like when I got my dream job and quit three days after I started because I could not stop crying. I’m not talking about the time we discovered we owed $6,000 to the IRS, or about the prolonged deaths of my mother and then my husband. I’m not talking about politics, earthquakes, asteroids, or plague.
I’m talking about those little disasters, where you stare, sigh, close your eyes, and get on with life.
Disaster: I was making turkey meatballs for the weekly family dinner Thursday afternoon. I let it go a little late because Thursday was busy, so I was rushing, and as I separated two chunks of the mix to form them into balls, a long hair stretched out between the two chunks. It was not my hair. It was someone else’s hair. I stared, sighed, closed my eyes, thought about it, dumped the whole bowlful of breadcrumbs, egg, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, smoke flavoring, oat milk, and turkey into the trash, and ran out to a different store to get more turkey.
Sort of a Disaster: I was waiting for the bus home with my fresh batch of turkey. I grabbed my wallet to get my bus pass out, lost my grip on my phone, juggled it, and dropped it face down on the sidewalk. I drop the phone regularly, mind you, but there’s a crisp and definite sound when a phone lands just right so that when you hear the sound, you stare, sigh, and close your eyes. The screen was not only cracked, it was black. I put it in my pocket, caught the bus, made an appointment with the Genius Bar for the next day, and made a fresh batch of turkey meatballs. I have other devices, so I could still read my book, send messages, control my cat’s automatic feeder, and even make phone calls, but it was tiresome.
Not a Disaster at All. The next day, I made it to the Genius Bar. I have Apple Care. I was prepared. The phone was still charging, and as I suspected, it was just the screen that was destroyed. I had two hours to kill, so I went shopping. Though I have spent too much money this week, I decided not to renovate my kitchen after all, so I did a mental tradeoff. I picked up the phone, and it was working beautifully. The bus home was on its way when I got to the stop. I was rather pleased.
Almost a Disaster: As I got on the bus, I routinely checked for my hearing aids (the important bits hook lightly and tenderly over my ears, fragile like butterflies, connected to my ear canal by a tiny tube) and couldn’t find one of them. I didn’t have time to stare, sigh, or close my eyes, because the bus was about to go. I got off, still fumbling at my ear, because that sucker costs about $2,000 and though I have replacement insurance, I don’t want to have to replace it. It turned out the missing hearing aid was still there, just dangling from its tiny tube, so I knocked on the bus door and the driver, bless him, let me on again. I sat down. Now I had time to stare, sigh, and close my eyes, because I have lost hearing aids this way, twice, and the insurance doesn’t cover them the second time you lose them.
Very Minor Disaster, Not Mine: A nice man sat down next to me on the bus, and put his bag of groceries down a little too forcefully so they made a sharp noise. “I hope that wasn’t the eggs,” he said, and we chuckled about what it’s like to get home and find that your eggs have broken and are all over everything. The woman across from us pointed at the floor under his bag. It was dripping. “Oh, it’s the milk,” he said sadly.
Totally Not My Disaster: Meanwhile, my adult kid was taking the bus to get their own cracked screen replaced by a third party technician, because their device is three years old and not covered any more. I think my kid eventually got their screen replaced (the grandson stepped on it) but it’s not my problem, so I didn’t worry. Things did not go well for my kid’s bus driver, however, because the bus’s front door fell off. Fell right off. My kid texted me a photo of the driver trying vainly to get the damn door back in place.
See, this is why some days I just avoid reading the news. I have enough disasters of my own to deal with, and though I know it doesn’t work that way for many people, real disasters do not comfort me at all. Real disasters just seem to climb up on top of the pile, stare at me, sigh, and close their eyes, and then I feel just terrible. On the whole, yesterday, I felt pretty good. I made meatballs after all, my phone is working, I didn’t lose my hearing aid, the guy’s eggs weren’t broken, and the bus door wasn’t my problem, so it was funny.