Going through our archives, we came across this great post by Dr. AnnMaria De Mars from November 13, 2016 “Life from a different perspective” that we wanted to share in case you missed it the first time around.
Last week, I was running late to a meeting so I parked at the last meter on the street in front of our building instead of across the street in the parking structure. When I came outside an hour later, there was a police car with its lights on, two cars that had smashed into each other coming around the corner – and my car! You know those accidents where one car hits another car that hits the car in front of it?
Well, this car came to a stop about 18 inches before where I was parked.
I hopped into my not-involved-in-the-accident car and drove off to my next meeting.
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| Lynnie the Guinea Pig |
Lately, my guinea pig, Lynnie, hurt her foot. I thought it would just cost me $10 to get her nails trimmed. Instead, I ended up calling 7 different veterinarians until I finally found one that saw guinea pigs. In about half an hour, the vet took care of her and I left $200 poorer – which I’m sure many of my friends and family would be appalled I spent on a guinea pig. Yes, I could have drowned her, bought a new one at PetCo for $30 and given the other $170 for starving children or clean water or the Julia De Mars Patagonia Shopping Fund, but I didn’t. She’s a nice little Guinea pig and I like her and my grandkids like her. Now, she is running around like a brand new critter, so it’s all good.
Next door to the one place I found that saw guinea pig emergencies (this is why I love LA – we have everything!) is the pet cancer center. There were some very sad people and some very sick looking animals. I was telling Eva, my granddaughter who came with me to the animal hospital, that is really a case that has no good outcome. You spend thousands of dollars and usually your pet dies before too long anyway. Your BEST case scenario is that you spend thousands of dollars and lots of your time caring for it and your pet lives, which still sucks because you end up thousands of dollars poorer. The people in this place didn’t look unusually wealthy – just unusually attached to their dying pet.
Well, I had no intention of spending thousands of dollars on a guinea pig (sorry, Lynnie), so my worst case scenario would have been having to tell the vet, ‘You’ll just have to put her to sleep’ , while holding my hands over my granddaughter’s ears. I’d end up with a traumatized grandchild and a dead guinea pig. (This is probably the last time Maria is letting Eva run errands with grandma.)
When I dropped Eva off at her house, I parked behind Maria’s car in the alley. I am not sure I was illegally parked but I’m not sure I wasn’t either. After three minutes, I was back in my car no one had run into and on my way.
Driving home, I thought of how often I hear people in my neighborhood talk about a ‘bad day” and it goes like this:
I had this meeting with an important client and the line at Starbucks was 20 minutes long. It was the drive thru so I couldn’t get out and now I’m running late. A block from their office someone makes an illegal turn, I slam on my brakes and coffee spills all over my shirt! I get to the office and AS IF MY DAY CAN’T GET ANY WORSE – I run into my ex-girlfriend who looks at my coffee-stained clothes and sniffs, “Nice look for the pitch, Babe.”
I hear this line a lot “AS IF MY DAY CAN’T GET ANY WORSE” – and think,
“Are you kidding me? Your day could be one hell of a lot worse.”
Personally, I really do think quite often, “Wow, my day could have been a lot worse.” I don’t mean in the way where when you lose your job you think, “At least I’m living here instead of in a war zone and my legs haven’t been shot off.”
I mean in the way that probably happens to most of us every day. Someone easily could have hit my car – twice (that’s it, I’m parking in the garage from now on). It could have been that the vet had to put my guinea pig to sleep. That coffee could have spilled all over me when I stopped at that light before the meeting.
I often remind myself, even on those running to meetings, going to the vet days,
“You know, this day really isn’t that bad.”
You can also donate a copy to a school or give to a friend.
