The dog is on the roof?!

Today has been a day!

I had a few plans to get things done, but was interrupted by a small dog acting strangely.  I called the vet and had to wait several hours to get her in (if I had thought it was an emergency, he'd have moved faster for me). By the time I was driving her to his office, I had completely talked myself into the fact that she had some awful neurological disorder and I was going to have to have him put her to sleep this afternoon.  Oh yah - pretty well had myself worked past all of the anger, bargaining, pleading, sorrow to acceptance.

No, it's nothing like that - the poor thing will lose some more teeth on Friday and she's having an issue with her eyes (she's nearly 14 - it's gonna happen) and then we'll be back at some semblance of normal. 

As I processed through all of those emotions today and then came out at the end of the appointment knowing that it was nothing life-threatening and all would be fine, I just chuckled at myself.  Am I really that much of a pessimist?

I am!  I learned a long time ago that if I can think things through to the worst possible scenario and figure out how to handle that, then I will be much better off when that worst case doesn't actually occur!  I hate being surprised by bad news.  If you have something terrible to tell me - do it really, really fast and then leave me alone for a few minutes to process the worst of it.  When I come back, I generally have a plan of action ready to go and can deal with it.

Here's one of my favorite jokes - but, this might be what I need!

John lived with his mother and his golden retriever.  When he won a 10-day cruise to the Puerto Rico, he couldn’t take his dog with him.

His brother, Al agreed to come over to John's house and stay while John was gone. All he had to do was feed the dog – their mother could take care of herself.

The first day, John called Al and asked, "How are things?" To which Al responded, "Things are fine."

"How's Mom?"
"Mom's fine."

"How's the cat?"
"The cat's fine." Satisfied, John hung up.


Next day, John called Al again, asking the same questions.

"How are things?"
"Things are fine."

"How's Mom?"
"Mom's fine."

"How's the dog?"
"The dog’s DEAD."

"WHAT?!?" John was quite distressed.  "How could you let it die? He was my best friend!”

"Well, John, I'm sorry, but I couldn't do anything, I didn't see it. But what I think happened was that the dog got on the roof, fell off, and broke his leg. Then, he hobbled out into the road, and got run over."

John was cooling down a bit now, and said, "Well, couldn't you have tried to break it to me over time?  You could have said it bit by bit. For example, you could have first said 'The dog is on the roof', then the next day said 'The dog fell off the roof, and broke its leg', see what I'm saying."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it.  See you later, John."

"Ok... bye."  John hung up.

The next day, John phoned Al again.

"How are things?"
"Things are fine."

"How's Mom?"
"Umm," Al said, "Mom's on the roof.”