Good In An Emergency

Well, the hot water heater blew up. Or did whatever these things do when they give up living. Andrew came home from work and heard something not altogether right - sure enough, the utility room was full of water. Happily it is sunken and so water was prevented from running amok among his belongings and instead has just run under the sub-floor.

This is a moment when I am good in an emergency. No panic, no tears, just a phone call to the insurance company and Oreo cookies to sustain the menfolk while they take out the tank. Lots of soothing talk about how it's not a problem if money can solve it, and how we have money tucked away for exactly these moments anyway (or at least for an installment payment for these moments) and if no one is hurt then bad feelings are not required.

Unfortunately, me being good in an emergency did very little to make the boys feel any better. They're still frustrated and annoyed, as I suppose is to be expected when you spend 2 hours sucking water off the floor and removing tanks and doing whatever it is one does at a time like this.

Which brings us to tonight's theme: the uselessness of being Me.

Okay, that may be a bit bleak, to say nothing of inaccurate. But I have been thinking about how me being good and okay has a lot less sway than me being cranky and mean. It seems that it is much easier to be a force for evil than for good. And perhaps that's not just true for me. Maybe all of us impact others the most with our negatives, while our neutral and very good make very little impact.

I called a friend today to whine about an encounter with another friend. My feelings had been dinged and I wanted someone to say that it was extra terrible. The dinger is lovely and someone whom I enjoy a lot. I have yet to call anyone randomly on a Monday afternoon to tell them that though. I saved the call until I had a flaw to pass along. I'm sure it is a sad reflection on my character, but it also reminds me that it most often our short-comings that are noteworthy, that get passed along. Because they're what do damage, and damage does have to be reported. Just like our hot water heater.

This is juxtaposed against what also seems to be true - it is our good that lives, long after our bad has died. With very few exceptions, despite many, many difficult situations with room-mates, bosses, co-workers, church connections and friends (to say nothing of family and husbands), I carry in my heart only good memories of people. I mean, once we get a goodly distance away. A few years past some pretty dismal episodes with some important people who I thought I would dislike for eternity, I find myself instead full of fondness and goodwill when I think of them.

So our bad is our most vivid self in the present but our good is our lasting impression?

Huh. Not what I was thinking I'd write about, but there you go.