Ever had one of those days? We had our weekly dinner night at church this evening, and as I had been dropped off at work this morning, I planned to take a different bus than usual that goes right in front of the church, reaching it about 15 min. before the meal was scheduled to begin.
I started packing up a few minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave, as I work directly across the street from the bus depot. I stopped to talk to a collegue about a quick fix to a problem, then walked downstairs. I could see my bus at the station as I walked out the front door. But there was an unusual amount of traffic on the street, and I watched in horror as my bus slowly pulled out of the station and into the cold, dark night. So, I walked over to another bus that would take me to the end of our church’s street, but it was out of service. I could either wait a half hour for the next bus that went directly in front of church, or get on a bus in 15 minutes that took me down the street from church. I called my wife and asked her to pick me up at the station down the street in 15 minutes.
I actually got on that bus, but my sons had other ideas about my wife getting out of the house on time. I arrived at the station before they were able to get out of the house. So I started walking towards church. Did I mention it was really freakin’ cold tonight? I finally got in the car about 10 minutes later and we pulled onto our church’s street… directly behind the next bus that goes right by church.
So we got to church about 15 minutes late, and the line for dinner was already stretching across the room. It was really great food: turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing… a little early thanksgiving because there’s no church dinner next week. Plus I spied some pecan pie waiting for dessert. We finally got through the line after another 10 minutes… and there were no seats left for the four of us. We ended up sitting at a couch and coffee table in the corner of the room, where I promptly spilled my drink as I set it down.
We moved to a table as one opened up to finish our meal, and I went to grab dessert… but there was no pecan pie left. Oh well. At least I was able to grab a cup of coffee before they dumped that out (my wife was a little too late for that one).
Funny how many things can be thrown off just by one little thing at the beginning. But we ended up having a great class about C.S. Lewis, and my son made a pretty cool potato turkey in his kids’ time. All in all, I had to remind myself of what’s really important in life and just let the rest go. Hopefully I can remember that next time before it’s all over.