A wise friend of mine often reminds me that “life is much harder than I expected it to be”. 

I am inclined to agree with that statement because somehow I assumed that adulthood would smooth out the bumps, either because I’d have money, wisdom, or experience to solve or avoid problems.

Haha. Fall down laughing.

1. When you have a plumbing incident, you do NOT want to hire the guy whose name is always followed by “bless his heart”. (But “all’s well that ends well”, as Ma Ingalls used to say.)
2. When you order something online, it is a real nuisance to have it arrive in the wrong color or size. The emails and paperwork tell you what you ordered, but the actual item is clearly wrong. This precipitates phone calls to navigate through tangled phone trees where they lie and tell you that the long wait is “due to an unusually high volume of calls”. There are ALWAYS more calls than can be handled; it is not unusual. So then you go to the website, and it doesn’t work. Sigh.
3. Upgrades for technical devices provide you with 2 choices: skip them and eventually things won’t work or do them and immediately things won’t work.
4. When you buy something that has to be assembled, you can assume that there will be typos, parts will be called by the wrong names, little pieces will be missing or won’t work, and then you can go through the same type of maddening exercise as in scenario 2 above..
5. When you have a key made to a door or perhaps a locked cabinet, just assume it won’t fit and that you will have to have it remade. Recently I am three for three on failed attempts to get keys made right the first time.

In spite of these situations, every once in awhile life hands you a little gift or two.

1. It was time to buy oil for Fernando (he burns some but what do you expect at 230,000 miles?) and IT WAS ON SALE FOR HALF PRICE!

I only bought 2 quarts. Motor oil, cat food, and printer ink should all be bought in small quantities. This is one of my guiding economic principles in life. You can probably figure out the reasoning behind this decision.

2. And a friend sent me this unexpected gift, because she is thoughtful, generous, full of good humor, and tuned in to what I enjoy.