The Missing Ring, the Wrong Coffee, and the Blue Screen: What a “Bad Day” Taught Me About Perspective

Some days, you get off work and head home.

You stop at the market and discover they are out of your favorite brand of coffee. You sigh, take the second choice, make your purchase, and leave.

As you are making your way out of the parking lot, some idiot pulls in front of you, and you narrowly miss a collision.

You get home and place the coffee in the pantry because, if you leave it on the counter, the Mrs. will certainly give you an eye roll before loudly placing it in the pantry herself. I chose to skip all that and put it away.

I decided to check my email before bed and turned on the computer.

There it was.

The Blue Screen of Death.

ERROR.

You may not proceed.

That quiet internal voice began whispering. HAL 9000 had entered the picture.

So far, I had contained the anger that had been simmering since about four that morning, when I noticed that I had apparently thrown away my wedding band while removing my gloves at work.

I searched every receptacle I could find.

Wow. We sure go through a lot of gloves.

I suppose that is a good thing. This is healthcare, after all, and we certainly do not want to spread germs.

I looked up, as though staring directly into a camera.

“Or misinformation.”

By then, I realized the best thing I could do was hydrate and go to bed.

I fell asleep and awoke five hours later to a whining Yorkie.

Bun-Bun.

She is not much for people being lazy when she wants more food. I say more food because I had fed her before I went to sleep.

Still simmering, I got up and tended to the brat known as Bun-Bun. The missing wedding band, the near collision, and the “other coffee” were still rattling around in my mind.

I was grumpy.

I performed my morning ritual, then headed into my home office and turned on the computer. I glared at the screen, waiting for HAL’s menacing Blue Screen of Death.

I made a mental list.

Lost wedding band.

Near car crash.

Wrong coffee.

Broken computer.

This day was ruined.

Then came a surprise.

The computer whirred to life, and all was well.

Well, except for one missing thing from decades long ago.

“You’ve Got Mail.”

I miss that.

I went into the kitchen, opened the pantry, and there, beside the second-choice coffee, sat a new can of my old favorite brand. I had simply missed seeing it that morning.

Two for two.

The day was beginning to perk up.

Being a man rapidly approaching his senior years, and having consumed far too much water through the night, another trip to the bathroom was warranted.

I flipped on the light, did what needed doing, and stepped toward the sink to wash my hands.

Something caught my eye on the floor.

My wedding band.

It had obviously slipped from my hand after my shower.

I picked it up, and the entire morning replayed rapidly in my mind.

Most of what had fueled my grumpiness had never actually happened.

The coffee had been there.

The computer was fine.

The wedding band was never thrown away.

Only the near collision had truly happened. And even then, it had not been just my close call. The other driver had nearly wrecked too. We both made it through without injury, repairs, or paperwork.

No great cosmic creature had conspired to ruin my day.

I had done it myself.

The mood had been built from assumptions, frustration, and the conclusions I had chosen before I knew the whole story.

Sometimes a bad day is nothing more than the wrong perspective placed upon events that have not yet finished unfolding.