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Unfortunate (but massively entertaining) Incarceration
Having a little crisis, are we?
Maybe I can help...mainly because I've been in a crisis of my own.
If you read my last newsletter, you know that in December, our daughter, Jamie, had some pretty serious surgery that required a lengthy recovery, so Ben and I took turns staying with her in her apartment in Boston.
At one point, we were there together, and I was getting some grief from my beloved husband. As many people know, Ben is generally considered the common-sense, left-brained one of our partnership. And he was constantly concerned about leaving me in Boston to roam the streets, doing errands for Jamie, since I am slightly direction-impaired. So when it was his turn to leave and mine to stay, he made a nametag for me that said: Name: Jill Baughan. If found separated from caregiver, please call 804-921-4320. No known allergies. Easily distracted/disoriented. Does not carry cash.
Yeah, he's a funny guy, all right, even if it was at my expense. Maybe I wasn't laughing (right away, at least). But it did bring the rest of my family a hefty measure of glee.
The next day, however, vengeance was mine. Ben was busy doing all the chores on the (left-brained) list he had made. First on the list was taking out the trash, so he grabbed his coat, hoisted the bags on his back, and hauled them down the stairs and out to the receptacles, which are located in a giant iron cage behind Jamie's apartment building. (You have to have a key to get into the cage.) A few minutes later, my phone rang. It was Ben. He had gone in to throw the trash away, and the gate had shut behind him. And there was no way out...no place to use the key, no space big enough to reach outside.
Yes, folks, Mr.Levelhead was stuck in jail with a week's worth of garbage, and was forced to beg me to bail him out.
Which I did, of course...right after I retrieved my conveniently placed camera from my coat pocket and took a picture.
Please don't think--just because I grabbed a camera to record my husband's unfortunate incarceration--that I am a sadist. Just an opportunist.
I'll admit, I'm still laughing. Good thing Ben has a highly developed sense of humor.
And I'm so grateful for that laughter and that sense of humor in the middle of unpleasant circumstances.
Maybe you're thinking these days that you just can't get a break...that as soon as something good happens, you hold your breath and wait for the proverbial other shoe to drop, for something nasty to follow.
Granted, there's some stuff in this life that's not funny. At all.
But may I suggest that, lurking around in much of today's bad news, there's a measure of glee? And may I suggest that you give yourself permission (and motivation) to indulge in it? To laugh in the middle of annoying, irritating dailiness? To smile right smack in the center of your sadness? To access the joy that's riding right alongside the tough times?
Granted, finding it may be harder on some days than others, but if you can bring yourself to be an opportunist, God may well have a crazy surprise or two waiting for you.
A camera helps.
And a highly developed sense of humor...
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