There are just some days you need to cry out to nobody in particular “WHY?”
You know those days when Murphy’s Law (if something can go wrong, it will) kicks in?
Let me tell you about mine recently. We’ve all been there.
For weeks, I had been looking forward to the premier of a special two-part documentary.
It was something I was desperate to see but it was showing on HBO. I don’t have HBO. I decided to order it for one month and then cancel it. That’s how much I wanted to see this show.
I had an odd sense of dread as the day came.
It was the weekend of the spring snow/rain/ice storm and my concern was a power outage.
What I hadn’t anticipated was my TV cable box going haywire and refusing to send a signal to the television.
I unplugged, plugged, re-plugged, booted, rebooted, unbooted counted to 30, spelled out Mississippi, did the hokey-pokey... anything I could think of.
I called three times in one day to my cable subscriber to no avail.
Time was ticking away.
I started to do what people always do when they feel desperate and need some help from the powers-that-be.
I started to promise things:
“If you let my TV work, I promise to be nice all the time for the rest of my life to everyone.”
“If you can just let my TV work for four hours I will give more money to charity.”
“Please give me a TV miracle and I will not use swear words when dealing with technology.” (I admit that was a stretch)
Okay, it was approaching crunch time.
“I promise I will not say mean things about the cable company for a whole YEAR if they get it fixed."
“Okay a MONTH.”
“Okay a WEEK.” (We all know this was never going to happen)
Well, they didn’t get it fixed so I didn’t have to worry.
In fact, I was left for four long miserable days awaiting a technician. This, on the weekend of the worst winter storm we had all spring. It was agony.
Talk about going stir crazy.
After much googling and gnashing of teeth, I did manage to get the show on my laptop. I am not quite sure how. It took a lot of navigation and passwords mingled with tears.
I sat on my couch with the computer in my lap for three and a half hours afraid to move in case the site crashed.
When I did finally make a move to the kitchen, for a snack, I opened the fridge and out flew my full carton of emergency storm eggs onto my newly mopped floor. The eggs were as jumbled as my nerves.
Sometimes you just have to wave the white flag.
All I can safely promise now is that I can’t keep my promises.
