Life's little challenges

Life just gives us all kinds of little challenges.  Now some would disagree with that.  Not that there are challenges, but that they are little challenges.  But hear me out here.  Since I'm of the opinion that life itself (that is doing life as I should) is a huge challenge, anything else that comes along is small by comparison.  Hence, little challenges.

Yesterday brought one of those challenges to me, one which continued right through until this morning.  That challenge was a stopped up double sink in the kitchen....with lots of dirty dishes and pans to do.  And the heat was on...all the teaspoons had been used, and wife needs at least one a day for her tea fixins.  It was stopped up because we live in a mega-old house with mega-old plumbing, that I can only assume has enough schmutz lining the insides of the pipes to fill the Washington Monument.  So after a trip to the Home Depot to buy a canister of the worlds most super pipe unclogger (don't they all say that!!), and later on after another trip to the Ace Hardware to buy another brand of the world's most super-duper pipe unclogger (yep, the first one didn't get it done), I finally gave up.  This after trying plungering and using a pipe worm to clear it as well. 

Alas, this morning I started the battle again....mere mortal man vs the godzilla of pipe clogs...because lo and behold, that gunky slimy mess which had been captured in the sinks had either evaporated or seeped on out the drains overnight because the sinks were empty.  I suspect the latter there.  Anyway, as soon as I put some hot water in the sink.....no surprise, I found they each held water....yep, without my putting the stoppers in.  Clogged still, what can I say.  I went to battle with renewed effort.  I went thru 2 whole containers (using just a bit at a time) of the unclogger and boiling water.....and eventually the water ran as fast out of the sinks as I was putting it in.  Mortal man won....but not before stinking up the whole house because those non liquid uncloggers are lye based.  Yikes, and phew!!!!

The second little challenge was more personal than the sinks, and happened this morning while I was working on challenge #1.  In between running more smell up the house drain unclogger, I was at the computer and threw a piece of Nicorette gum in my mouth.  Not a bad idea for those times when a former smoker really wants a smoke...you know....challenge + coffee  = huge desire for a cigarette (enough so that you really want to forget about the bad lungs and the pneumonia one just got over).  Here is the real challenge that was presented me.  I have false teeth.  Most gums do NOT like false teeth, and they will latch onto the teeth like a prostitute latches onto her payment.  Nuff said.  I now had gummy false teeth.  Thank you Lord!!  (That would be for Google.)  I found out how to unstick stuck gum from false teeth in easy order, and now am the proud owner of gum free false teeth once again..

Here's my whole point of the above.  I had choices in how to deal with the above two challenges.  In an earlier time (in the not too distant past, in fact) I had a whole arsenal of methods to deal with life's little challenges.  To name a few:

• swearing proficiently was at the top of the list
• hitting things (not people, fortunately) and throwing things wasn't far behind
• getting so worked up that my blood pressure equaled Mt. Everest for height
• in general, making a total ass out of myself

Rarely, if ever, did any of those tools in my Dealing With Life's Challenges Tool Box work in solving any of life's little challenges. 

For the better part of a year now I have made a many-times-daily effort to convince myself that if I remain KIND and CALM  at all times, no matter the circumstances, I won't automatically reach for any of those lesser tools in my tool box.  And if that is so, then it becomes easier for me to take a more reasoned, thought out, patient, logical, and God like approach to solving life's little challenges.