When Bad Days Collide

Any day that starts out with me getting up early and taking my husband to the airport so he can get on a plane without me is by definition not a good day. It doesn't have to be a bad day, but it isn't going to be good. Such was last Tuesday. Add in the fact that I got four hours of bad sleep the night before, and we're starting to turn "not a good day" into a bad one. I chugged a grande vanilla latte on the way to the airport, hoping the caffeine would at least kick in before noon. I'm beginning to wonder if the words "grande vanilla latte" were code for "decaf coffee with tons of sugar" at Starbucks that day because the drink only made me punchy, in a "I'm really tired but something's trying to make me hyper" sort of way. I was too tired to even take a nap that day. I was too tired to write. I was too tired to read. All I managed was to sit on the couch and stare at the TV and the clock, waiting for 6:30 to roll around so I could go to my writing group. Little did I know that my day was heading for train wreck territory.

I'm basically the moderator of our group. We're a pretty laid back bunch, so my job is mostly really easy. The biggest challenges I've had in this role are to remember to update our roster and get my contact information updated in the RMFW monthly newsletter. Well, last Tuesday presented the worst issue I hope to ever deal with in this group. And, of course, I was far too tired and cranky to deal with it in any positive way.

It turns out that two other people were having off days. And their personalities are such that they usually don't back down on good days. On their bad days, diplomacy is antithetical to one of them, and the idiom "discretion is the better part of valor" only makes sense in hindsight to the other. Needless to say, they clashed and clashed loudly. Over something that did have merit, but was better to talk about after we had gone through all of the selections to be critiqued that night. I tried a couple of times to break into their "discussion" with no luck, as did one other person in the group. When I cut to the chase, indicating that I was having a bad day and wasn't going to solve their little scuffle diplomatically, they didn't hear me. So I walked away to buy a book (it's both very nice and very dangerous meeting at Borders) with the order that they had to work it out by the time I got back. They had, but I think due to the intercession of someone else in the group, and one of the arguers had to say one last piece before we moved on still. The other arguer got up and left herself, realizing a little too late that her resources were tapped due to her own bad day. And the "What, me be diplomatic?" guy eventually realized he had crossed a line by the time the night was over. It all worked out, but I left Borders that night, kicking myself for not being able to moderate. Granted, I was in absolutely no mental (and physical) position to do so at the time, but that didn't stop my inner perfectionist from raking me over the coals about the incident.

I'd like to say that Wednesday was better, but it wasn't. Last week pretty much sucked over all, ending with a flourish in Cincinnati (I'm counting the wedding onward as the weekend, and therefore devoid of last week's suckiness).