Cockeyed optimism is over rated

Let me start by saying, I’ve read The Secret and I am a firm believer that a positive attitude can help create positive results a solid 85% of the time.

That being said, realism and optimism are definitely at different ends of the spectrum and will always remain so.

Case in point – my day yesterday.

I planned on getting a few errands done and I figured they would be relatively easy. While DH waited at home for our SIXTH visit from the fridge repair guy [yes, don’t even ask], I went out to the library to renew a book and to the bank to return some items to a safe deposit box. How hard could these things be, right?

Well, at the library, the computers were down. So I could not renew the book because, and I quote the library employee with whom I spoke, “That would be too many things to do manually.”

Eh? This is a very small town. When I say small, I mean the south end of town is just north of the north end of town. That’s how small it is. The library has seven books in it. Six outdated encyclopedias and one copy of The Amityville Horror [the book I was renewing for DD]. Seriously, on a weekday morning in the middle of April, how much ‘manual’ labor did they think they’d have to do if the computers were down, even for a whole day?

How did the library manage to operate before there were computers? They never had a staff of thousands. The same four people have worked there for 200 years [I’m exaggerating, 199 years] and way back when, they did everything MANUALLY.
I shrugged and said I would come back later.

Off I went to the bank. There, it took the bank clerk fifteen minutes and three different keys to figure out how to open the little bank vault door behind which my safe deposit box resides. Typical bank question: “Are you sure this is the right number box?” No, I’m not sure. I chose a number randomly. “Are you sure you have the right key?” No, this may be the key to my offshore account in the Seychelles.

There was twisting and turning and expressions of dismay and finally, she turned the key IN THE OTHER DIRECTION, and it opened.

No way. You would think that even in a small town such as this, a bank with literally hundreds of safe deposit boxes would have enough traffic that the clerks would know instinctively which way the keys turn. This was not a new employee, btw. Now, you might say, hey, anyone can make a mistake. Heavens, I drove halfway across town with my parking break on a few months ago and DD is still laughing about it. We’re all only human. I wouldn’t even complain except a second bank employee had to open the little door to put the box back when I was done with it, and she did the exact same thing. Struggle, struggle, struggle, twist, turn, sigh, try three other keys and finally turn it in the other direction. Behold! It opens.

Then I went home to discover that the fridge repair guy wasn’t coming because the dispatcher told him we cancelled the service call. We didn’t.

We put in a new service call and finally the technician arrived around 2:00. He did the same thing the other five guys have done. He wrote down the part number of the fridge, typed it into his portable computer and ORDERED THE PARTS the computer told him to order. So two weeks from now we can expect to receive THE WRONG parts again and he can come back and tell us the parts don’t fit.

So what’s the Secret to not blowing a gasket? I vote for high doses of sedatives. Or extreme sarcasm, whatever works for you.