I had the day off on Tuesday. I was anticipating a busy day, filled with completed tasks, both large and small. What I got was an astounding melange of ever-increasing, unbelievable calamities. I’ve included book covers throughout this post from books where characters face funny disasters, some of their own making and some they just find themselves in, because by the end of the day I felt like I had lived them all.
The day began as most of my mornings do, with breakfast at 5 a.m. for my two dogs.  My 13-year-old dog, Theo, just couldn’t settle down; he paced and paced the bedroom and would run downstairs. I followed him because I thought he needed to go out. He went outside, but nothing happened. I went back upstairs. This pattern repeated itself three times before I just gave in and stayed up. His increasing discomfort was starting to really alarm me. In the years I’ve owned this dog, he’s only vocalized pain once and that was after I ran over his foot while in an office chair. He started howling that morning, and I knew something really bad was going on.
I put Theo in the car and raced to my vet’s office, thankful that they open early. I was driving fast, very fast, and not paying attention to anything until I noticed a police car from another town, parked in a driveway. Rather than think, “Oh, I better slow down.” I just kept looking at the cruiser, wondering why a cop from three towns over would be in my town. I passed him and then he put on his blue lights. I was not surprised, really. But I did something that I had no control over. I started to cry. Not because I was afraid of the cop, but because I knew this was going to take a long time. Honestly, has anyone ever gotten in a ticket in less than 10 minutes? I found my license, but had the wrong registration. I told him why I was speeding (I’ve been pulled over four times and every time I admit to speeding I didn’t get a ticket). I actually asked him if he could just mail me the ticket, so I could keep driving. He took pity on me and let me go.
Once at the vet’s it was clear the dog was really sick. Turns out he had bloat which can be a devastatingly fast killer of dogs. Theo was whisked into a surgery; the vet told me he might not survive because of his age. I went home fearing the worst. During this waiting time I got a phone call from the spa where I had booked a fun day-off massage. They were calling wondering where I was. I apologetically explained about the dog, paid for the missed massage and thought that was the end of it. But the owner called me back to literally yell at me for not calling to cancel. Wow. Was I supposed to remember about a massage when my dog was in life or death surgery? I reminded her I paid for the missed appointment and suggested we leave it at that. But no, later that day, I actually got an angry email from her demanding to know if I’d have called a doctor or dentist to cancel an appointment in the same situation. I wrote back no and suggested that since I would never go to her spa again, she stop writing me.
This exchange brought home the point about customer service. The benefit of the doubt should always be given to customers. It’s not like I was trying to steal a massage. I just couldn’t go and forgot to call. To be berated after doing the right thing is pointless and just ruins the relationship. Had she handled it better and been more understanding about my situation, I might be inclined to go there again.  This reminded me that every once in a while people have good reasons for the things they do, even if it hurts our business.
The vet called around 11 and said Theo did great and that we could pick him up at five. This week we are moving my partner’s father’s to an assisted living facility near us, so while I was waiting to pick the dog up, I went over to his apartment to get Bob packed up a little. He’s been in the hospital, so I had free run of the apartment. I should mention that Bob is a magician, so every suitcase I picked up had false bottoms and collapsible sides. Snakes popped out of cans and I fully expected to see rabbits and doves to appear in hats.
What I wasn’t expecting was the bowling ball. I moved what I thought was a joke paint can and for some reason, a 10-pound bowling ball fell out of the paint can, onto my little toe, from a height of a foot, breaking my little toe.
I was starting to feel like my day had become unhinged. There’s that part in The Cat and the Hat that always makes me anxious. It’s right at the height of the mess-making. I never had any faith the Cat would clean up, and the kids would get in trouble for something they had no control over. My day was feeling remarkably like that.
I brought Theo home and he was doing fantastically well. That night as I hopped around the yard on one good foot with Theo (my little toe having swollen to such a degree no shoe I owned could accommodate it), making sure he was actually moving his bowels, I kept thinking of The Voyage to the Bunny Planet, and hoped that tomorrow I would have a shot at the “the day that should have been.”