BLAM!!! Laugh, Cry, Anger

You’re thinking your life is wonderful, no current crisis is on the horizon, no big decisions to make, everything seems to be rocking along. Then, out of the blue, something happens in five minutes, your world is turned upside down, you have to make some instant decisions. Your emotions are put into overdrive. It’s not a life or death situation; it’s just an aggravation, something unexpected, an embarrassing thing, a circumstance that is surprising. You have to instantly decide are you going to laugh, cry or get angry.

Years ago, when I had my own architectural firm, the boys were 2 yrs., 4 yrs. and six yrs. old. I came home after a typically exhausting day with contractors and was trying to make myself be the “good mom” and cook a healthy dinner, while starting the usual six loads of laundry. The boys were racing around the house, my pots were boiling, I was thinking, “I can handle this!!”.

Then, the washing machine went into the drain cycle. BLAM!!! Every plumbing fixture in the house backed up. The kitchen sink was filling up, the washer was overflowing, the toilets were bubbling – the house was definitely possessed! Luckily, with five years of engineering and architecture schooling, I knew to turn OFF the water. I checked around, couldn’t figure out what the problem was, so I called the plumber; of course it’s after hours, time and a half charges!!! He pulls out his giant bent mirror, similar to what the dentist uses to look at your teeth, sticks it down one of the boy’s toilets and there is a Mickey Mouse face looking back at the five of us staring into the bowl – the plumber, me and all the boys. They had flushed their nightlight down the toilet.

Why?? Who knows?? BLAM!!! Laugh at this scene?? Cry at the check I’m going to have to write?? Get angry and send everyone to their rooms?? Laugh = what a great story to tell at their Rehearsal Dinners!!

I was out with my very tall, very chic sister-in-law one evening; a beautiful girl, into fashion and “in the know” of all the latest gossip. I had made myself leave one of the boy’s baseball games early, so I could meet her and our husbands at her favorite fancy restaurant and go to the theatre – we watched four people on stage, sit in twelve chairs, moving every five minutes, for two hours! My feet hurt in my high heel shoes. I was miserable from all the rich food we had just eaten and not interested in talking about the “latest” anything. The four of us left the theatre; we were crossing the street to go to the parking lot.

Have you ever approached a wide puddle with some leaves floating on top and had to decide whether or not you could make the wide step to get over the water? I am 5’4”, the men were both 6’0” and my sister-in-law was 5’9”. They made it over totally dry. Me? I had to take a tiny step just on the edge of the water to reach the other side. No, my shoe didn’t just get a little damp! No, I went into this hole up to mid-thigh in gutter water!!!

Three people stood on the sidewalk and laughed to tears. No one offered a hand to help me out. I had to literally crawl on my hands and knees out of this massive hole, that shouldn’t have been there in the first place. BLAM!! Laugh at myself and the way I looked, compared to my “dressed to the nine’s” sister-in-law? Cry, because I actually hurt my ankle? Get angry at three rude people, who could have helped me? Laugh = sometimes, it’s the only way to get your emotions centered again.

One of my last architectural clients was the CFO of a major airline company and his doctorate educated wife. We definitely spoke a different language, but they had trusted me to totally gut their home and we were in the last stages of putting it back together. Yep, down to the final few items on the checklist to finish. I got a call at 6:00 A.M. on the morning of our last meeting; she heard something leaking slightly and had put a pie pan under it.

What should she do? I thought maybe it was the air conditioning pan overflowing and I knew that I would be there by 7:00 A.M. to meet some of my subs, so I told her to just turn off the units. One hour later, I walked into her Family Room to see her two sons, 5 yrs. and 9yrs. old, running around with umbrellas; “Mommy, mommy, look Carolyn made it rain in our house!!” Yes, water was pouring out of every canned light in the ceilings, down the newly painted walls, onto the newly installed wood flooring. It was literally pouring rain inside their whole house. Luckily, it turned out that the problem wasn’t with anything that I had been involved with. Whew!!

But, BLAM!!! Laugh at the sight of the “virtual rain” and her boys getting drenched? Cry, knowing that the project I had just finished was going to have to be done basically all over again? They had been patient clients, but there’s just so much chaos anyone can stand. Be angry because the timing for all my other jobs was going to be totally thrown off and I’d have to beg all of the contractors to come back? Laugh = a definite story for my “client book” of memories. I don’t think I could have made that happen, even if I had wanted to.

BLAM!! Out of the blue something strikes; a situation develops; a small accident happens; someone does something that is out of left field; an unforeseen event occurs. Like when Raisin, our black lab, ate just the meat out of Robert’s hamburger that was sitting on the counter. Like the day I found the cleaning lady polishing the antique dining room table with the commercial floor buffer. How about the rainy afternoon I came home to all the boys and their friends hanging over the second story landing with their fishing poles and buckets of water below, trying to catch all the aquarium fish in the family room!! Something is going to happen, so hopefully, when it does, you can make the choice to LAUGH!!! What’s the memory you want to keep and cherish?