Nuggets

Why is it when you just sit down to watch the most anticipated show on TV, the doorbell rings and you get unexpected house guests? That happened to me last night right at 9:00 when 24 was coming on.

I answered the door thinking it might be my sister coming over to watch with me, but it wasn't. She (the person at the door, not my sister) asked me "What are you doing?" and I told her "I'm just sitting down to watch 24, my most favorite show on TV." Not getting the hint, she lingered in my doorway in the frigid cold, so I invited her in. To her credit, she didn't try to talk to me while 24 was on - only during the commercials. Truth be told, the company was a welcome surprise.

We got to leave early from work yesterday - at 4:30 instead of 5:00. A message came over the intercom that said "Due to the extreme cold, all team members (don't you just love the term "team members"?) are allowed to leave early today at 4:30." It was 4:20 when the message came. I was pretty excited. A half hour is a half hour after all. However, there are people I work with who just love to complain about anything, and they started complaining about this. "What difference does it make?", they said. "It's still going to be just as cold at 5:00!" While this may have been true, it wasn't the point as far as I was concerned. The point was, we got to go home early. The power that is at BJ Alan was trying to do something nice for us. I chose to take it for what it was, and gathered up my stuff to leave. I told all the complainers that since they didn't think it made any difference, they could just stay until 5:00. Of course none of them did. They all left early, complaining all the way out to the parking lot. I feel sorry for those people who can't find even a small measure of joy in the small nuggets we get daily.

We have choices to make on how we choose to view our lives. We can either look through jaded eyes, which I admit, I find myself doing on not-so-rare occasions, or we can look at things with a spirit of gratefulness. I was grateful for that half hour, and I was happy to see my friend. Two little nuggets in an otherwise routine day.