Jackie Wells-Fauth
It was the last pill in my prescription bottle and I was in a hurry to get on the road in my oh-so-busy life. I had decided I could wait until tomorrow to renew the prescription, because I still had that one pill. I took it in my hand as I headed down the steps for the car because, of course, it must be taken with food. I had decided that instead of just grabbing some toast at home to take the pill with, I would grab a doughnut on the way.
The problem was—what to do with the pill while I drove to the doughnut store? No problem; I simply laid it on the top of my coffee mug. It would be fine there on the lid of the coffee container for a few minutes. Except as soon as I took off, the pill slid through the opening in the coffee mug lid and sank to the murky bottom of the cup!
My last pill…no more for another day until I could get back and get a refill. Now what? Yes, indeed, you guessed it. I sucked down that whole giant cup of coffee so I could get at the grainy remains of the pill at the bottom. Causing me to then need to stop in the nearest town on the road to relieve myself of the swiftly drunk coffee!
It seemed like such a good idea at the time. And it ended as all things do that I try because “it’s a good idea at the time;” in disaster. I was forced to lick the final granules of my final pill from the bottom of a very deep coffee mug!
I once backed my brand new husband’s fancy car into a stop sign. It seemed like a good idea at the time to keep backing up so I could see what I’d hit, thus putting a scratch all along the car and eventually flattening the stop sign. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I suspect that the only reason I remained married after that was because my husband didn’t want to go through the expense of hiring a divorce lawyer (or a defense attorney) that early in the relationship!
I could avoid these kinds of problems—large and small—if I just thought it through a little better, but I have a tendency to make snap decisions and then repent at leisure, wondering what in the world made me think that was a good idea. Of course, it always seems like a good idea at the time and it always ends up dissolved in the bottom of my coffee mug!
It is an impulse that actually runs in my family. My sister once crawled under a grainery and then couldn’t get out because, of all things, her head got stuck! I scoffed for months, wondering what made her think that was a good idea. Then, mid-summer, I ran barefoot through a mud puddle to prove that I could avoid stepping on whatever broken glass was sticking out of the center of the pool. I couldn’t. After that, I understood my sister better and I understood as I was getting a foot full of stitches that we both tended to think something was a good idea at the time when it really wasn’t!
I also plan good ideas that don’t work out that well. I have yet in my life to plan a surprise party where the surprise didn’t end up being on me. The worst was when I decided to give Roy a surprise fortieth birthday party. We were planning on quite a few people and we were going to hold it in my sister’s garage.
I spent all of two days preparing food, which wasn’t easy when Roy came home at night. I had two young girls at home and keeping them quiet was also a chore. But, up until the final afternoon, I had managed to plan a surprise party. It seemed like a good idea at the time….
I was in mid-afternoon cooking mode. I had banana, strawberries, peaches, pears and every other kind of fruit possible for a salad chopped up and spilling over the counters. I was browning mounds and mounds of hamburger for barbeques. I had chips and buns stacked on the counter ready to be stashed away before Roy got home. But I had two hours, plenty of time.
Then the dog got loose and I had to go find her. I had a major blowout with the electric fryer, so it slowed the browning of hamburger to one not too large skillet. I cut my fingers on the fruit and had to clean myself up and then pick out any blood-stained fruit. And lastly, I piled the buns in their cartons on the floor by the back door to get them out swiftly and the dog sat on one.
Before I knew it, Roy walked in the door, his mouth dropping open at the heaps of food, decorations everywhere, the cake which had just been delivered, and me, covered in bandaids and berating the dog.
“It’s your 40th birthday,” I snarled at him, “Surprise.”
So probably, putting a pill on top of my coffee mug and watching it slide in and dissolve, isn’t the worst idea I’ve had, it’s just the latest experience where I thought something was a good idea at the time.
dropsinthewell 