Home Front: Layers of small problems can often frustrate but always offer perspective

By Gerald LaVaute, Heritage Newspapers

I have noticed that when it comes to bad luck, when it rains, it often pours.

I'm not referring to really bad things, like a serious illness or accident or loss.

Because when it comes to the truly important things, I'm a very fortunate person. No complaints there.

The types of problems to which I refer here are minor problems, but the way that these small mishaps and misfortunes can pile up in a very brief time is consistently amazing to me.

It's almost as if someone or something celestial is pulling strings to shower misfortune on us as mere mortals, and I'm the current victim. Or maybe it's bad karma for something I did in the past.

Consecutive problems occur to me with sufficient regularity that I took to using a term for it, in order to explain it to myself, and to talk myself down from the dark mood it sometimes induces.

I call the specific succession of minor problems that at times occur during my day "layers." The point is that it's not the first problem that creates the issue, nor even the second.

But when a third or fourth or even fifth problem manifests itself in a short period, I am steamed. Life's not fair. Why do bad things happen to good people?

I've discussed this with my wife, and she acknowledges the existence of layers. In fact, they happen to her at times.

Let me be specific: I was out with her on a Saturday afternoon. We were running a variety of errands before we went to church.

On the first errand, I had decided to wash my car. This is a simple task that I do most of the time in minutes.

Because I live on a dirt road, and it's winter, washing the car is a signal event for me. It has literally been weeks since I last washed it, and it's filthy.

The weather forecast says that I have a very brief window this weekend through Monday in which my car may remain clean, until Tuesday when an inch of snowfall is being forecast.

So I'm geeked about driving a shiny car for, oh, two days. But when I pulled up to the car wash on Saturday, the message on the money box said" "temporarily out of order."

OK. I can live with that. It's happened before. It's time to run the next errand, and I push on to the next stop, the Canton library.

The parking lot is virtually full, something I've never seen at the library. I try one parking lot, then another. Eventually, I find a spot, park and conduct my business in the library.

Next stop: an ATM on Canton Center Road, to make a deposit.

Not so fast: my PIN number doesn't work. I can't make the deposit, because the bank is closed.

(Aside: I learned on Monday why this occurred, and it was entirely my fault. So the layer theory is challenged: it's not bad karma so much as something for which I'm at fault. Just don't tell my wife.)

Okay, I say, on to the next errand, where I have to make another deposit at another bank. But this ATM won't take my debit card. When I attempt to put it into the slot to begin the transaction, it doesn't accept the card.

I mumble something about "layers" to my wife and pull away from the ATM. My blood pressure is elevated at this point. Why me?

We go to Sam's Club on Ford Road to do a little grocery shopping. Now, I should have my head examined for attempting this at 2:30 p.m. on a Saturday. The path eastward down Ford Road is backed up with traffic for hundred of yards.

I take a detour at my wife's suggestion (she's such a great partner, in so many ways) for my first good luck in the last hour or so.

The parking lot at Sam's is bustling with activity, and I'm beginning to suspect the store will be very crowded.

Fretting over layers doesn't count if they're self-induced. And I was beginning to think that I might have had a hand in causing some of this bad luck.

But there's little time to contemplate this; I'm in the middle of a busy parking lot outside a retail store on a Saturday afternoon. I need to park.

I drive down one aisle, and my wife points out a vacant space in the next row over.

I go to the end of the aisle, and as I begin to make a u-turn down the next aisle, a driver in an SUV zips in front of me, cutting me off. The driver gives me the Seinfeld "wave" as if I was being gracious in letting him go ahead of me.

OK, that's life sometimes. But don't think I'm not thinking about layers as I follow him down the aisle.

His wife is waiting with a full shopping cart about halfway down the aisle. He pulls his SUV over to the right a bit, gets out, and begins to help her load the vehicle.

Problem is, he's made my job of pulling into an empty parking space on the left significantly harder. My turning radius toward the left is compromised because he's parked on the right.

I manage, but I have to pull out of the spot after first pulling in, to straighten out the car.

So there you have it: the final layer in a space of about 75 minutes. It may be a record for me.

But sometimes I think that it's heaven's way of reminding me to stop whining about such small stuff, and to develop a little perspective.

And when I do this, it is an exercise that always reminds me of just how lucky I am, despite sometimes being bedeviled by life's layers.

Gerald LaVaute is a staff writer for Heritage Newspapers. He can be reached at glavaute@heritage.com. Check out The View's staff blog at http://bellevilleview.blogspot.com/