Crappy Day

Crappy Day

Noel Laflin

7-28-18

“I’ve had a crappy day,” Brian said, stopping by my driveway last evening.  He straddled his bike and sighed.

“How so?” I enquired, always comfortable around this good-hearted neighbor of several decades.

“Well, I was installing a shower door at a client’s house this afternoon and broke the darn thing.  It was an eight hundred dollar door.  This was a first for me.  All I did was gently tap the edge of it for the final alignment and it shattered, cascading down around me like a million tiny stars.”

“Ouch!” I replied in consolation, suddenly recalling a time when an old glass table top unexpectedly exploded on me while carefully moving it from house to garage. I had tiny beads of glass in my hair for days.

“So on my way to the hardware store to find a temporary shower rod and curtain, a lady flags me down and says she has locked her keys in her car and that her baby is in the back seat.  Thinking right off, it might be a con, I was suspicious.  But then I thought what if it’s true?  I finally told her alright, I’ll take a look.”

“And …” I prompted.

“Sure enough, there was a crying baby in a car seat in the back seat of her locked car.”

“What did you do?” I asked, thoroughly engrossed in the new turn of events.

“At first I tried the coat hanger trick, and had the keys all the way to the top of the window before they slipped off and fell between the door and the seat.  Then I grabbed a hammer from the truck and attempted to break a window.  But the darn glass wouldn’t even crack!  I mean, I can break a shower door with a slight tap and can’t break a car window with repeated hammer blows?  The irony of that, huh? And then the kid stopped crying, at which point I told the lady that perhaps we should call the fire department ASAP."

I was beginning to fear that his crappy day was about to get worse.

“But, I went back to the coat hanger and finally snagged the keys and got them through the window.  The baby was fine; the lady threw me a hurried thanks, and drove off.  I still have the shower mess to contend with.  Thus, ends my crappy day.”

I stood there during this unexpected driveway moment and looked at Brian with sudden admiration.

“How can you say this was a crappy day?  You saved a kid, my friend!  Shower doors can be replaced, but this …”

“Well, I guess I hadn’t looked at it quite that way,” he shyly conceded, smiled, said good bye, and pedaled on home.

We should all have such crappy days – minus the breaking of an eight hundred dollar shower door of course.