By We’ve both had bad days. Believe me. We’ve had days where our entire realities changed before our eyes. Days where the documents were signed. Days where we didn’t know if we’d smile again. Days we didn’t know we’d be meeting each other in the future and never would have guessed we’d have a person to stand in line at Ikea with.
Yesterday didn’t go as planned. Here is what our Saturday was going to look like:
Wake up early. Go to kid’s volleyball game. Run one quick errand. Be home before noon. Pop into the office. Walk the dogs. Exercise. Continue on to evening plans.
THAT’S IT!
Instead, we ran over a bicycle on our way to the game and everything after that was a hilarious string of annoying and frustrating events. We laughed together, sort of argued together, had strained/serious conversations about our life and future, and ultimately had a weird day that was still OKAY because hey, we were together.
You can read all about running over that bicycle here. Friends came to help. We made it to the second half of the volleyball games. We took a deep breath and continued forward.
I want to share what the rest of the day looked like for two reasons:
- To make you feel less alone in your own “bad day”
- To help you laugh at mishaps and realize that MOST of us have “bad days” where nothing too tragic happens. We tend to quickly slap labels on days and forget what a bad day actually looks like.
First, we ran over that bicycle. Sparks flying, rubber smoking, the whole bit. Ridiculous. What the bike was doing out in the middle of the highway, we’ll never know. But the owner of that bicycle was probably having a bad morning, too.
We watched some 6th graders play volleyball. Our daughter did a great job. Then we hitched a ride back to the minivan.
We wanted to add some air to the spare tire.
No air to be had! Alright.
Next step was to get our sad car to the nearest Discount Tire. Off we went. Here, we waited in a long line. We were told the car could be fixed within the next three hours.
So off to the Starbucks across the street we went. We both had on sandals. It was freezing and wet out.
We ordered some food and a drink. Turns out they didn’t have what we ordered, so Israel got back in line to get a refund. Then they mixed up the drinks and Israel stood and awkwardly tried to look at a few of the drinks sitting there, waiting to be claimed. It was just funny. So I took a photo.
Israel had a book. I had my phone. We sat and waited.
We took a selfie.
Hours later, we got the call that our car was ready. New tires. New tires we didn’t expect to have to buy just yet. You know, the usual.
Here, we had a choice. Call it a day, get home to the dogs and get warm and cozy. OR… go to Ikea to run a “quick errand.”
I know what you’re thinking. GO HOME!
But we didn’t. We went to Ikea.
We spent a total of around 4 hours in this purgatory. We stood in lines in Ikea for more than half of this time.
AND 3 out of 5 items we went there for were “temporarily unavailable.”
We not only stood in lines, but we stood in a few of the WRONG lines. That only added insult to injury and made us both breath deeply, eyes closed, knowing that we had no one to blame but ourselves – equally.
I am very much aware of the privilege involved in this story. We were on our way to an early morning game and we both had free time to do so. We started that journey in a car that functions. We had friends come to our rescue. We had the luxury of getting new tires that very same DAY and sat in a warm STARBUCKS to pass the time. Then we CHOSE to enter an awful furniture store, knowing exactly what to expect, and then we were stunned by how annoying it was.
Basically, we didn’t have a bad day AT ALL. We had a day full of less-than-perfect scenarios, but nothing earth shattering happened. Neither of us were hurt when we hit that bicycle. Our car didn’t flip. No one was RIDING the bike!
In the middle of this day, all we wanted was to be home and maybe have a re-do. But by the end of the day, we were laughing and deciding which pictures were “blog” worthy. Even the “tense” conversations we had while we were waiting in all of those lines… those were good to have. And we might not have had them, or the time to think of what to say, without the situation we were in.
We even had a friend go to our home to let our dogs out! Good grief. And we wanted to call that a bad day.
We’ve both had bad days. Believe me. We’ve had days where our entire realities changed before our eyes. Days where the documents were signed. Days where we didn’t know if we’d smile again. Days we didn’t know we’d be meeting each other in the future and never would have guessed we’d have a person to stand in line at Ikea with.
So there you have it. Thanks for sticking with us. Please share with us your own version of a “bad day” that actually wasn’t all that bad. We’d love to know. We also want to be there for your real bad days. The ones where hope is no where to be found and being stranded in a coffee shop is preferable to the hell you’ve found yourself in. We’ve been there – we just happen to not be there anymore.
The Ruck continues for all of us. It’s up to us how we define our days.
Israel and Melinda 