Life Requires a Sense of Humor

I feel sorry for people who don’t have a sense of humor. They are out there. I’ve met them.

I, on the other hand, have one. You may not get it. It’s warped and wrong most of the time, but I have one. And that is what got me through this morning.

This morning I was heading out to do my first public talk on "My Rocks in a Jar." I rehearsed in front of my husband last night. He gave me good feedback and helped me clarify some things.  I packed up my two jars: one with rocks and the other with rocks and pebbles. I decided against using a jar with rocks, pebbles AND sand as it’s a pain to clean-up. So, everything was ready to go this morning.

As I was getting ready to head out of the house, I realized that I might really want to change my whole talk to “Marshmallows in a Jar” because a gallon-sized glass mason jar filled with fist-sized rocks IS HEAVY! And genius that I am, I decided to have TWO jars.

That got fixed really quickly though as we headed towards the kids’ school.  First time I had to use the brakes to slow down, the jars tipped over in the bag and from that point on I could hear the glass grinding with every turn. The kids were upset for me. “It’s OK guys, they are just the visuals and I can still do my talk without them.  I’m hoping only one jar broke and that I still have the other one.”  I could tell by the tink-tink-tink sound beyond the glass grinding that the jar with the pebbles definitely broke and that there were now pebbles sloshing around in the bag on the floor of my car.

At this point I’m thinking that maybe we can change the talk to “My Rocks OUT of a Jar.”

I could have been really upset. I could have stressed about it. But I chose not to and I’m glad. I still had one jar with rocks in it. The talk went well.  The most common comment I received was “I get that the rocks are the most important things in my life and that the sand is the time wasting stuff in my life but I’m confused by the pebbles.” I had tried to explain that the pebbles represent the things that we do in life that aren’t the most important things but aren’t the time wasters either. Apparently, I need to be more specific.

What I should have said is that what the pebbles really are are things rolling around on the floor of my car.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day!