One crappy day

There are many ways in which I would not wish to be woken up. The blare of the smoke alarm for instance. The scream of my darling wife convinced hundreds of spiders are biting her is another. An excited son leaping onto my sensitiveness. Yesterday morning was among the worst though as it involved my youngest, Alexa, announcing, "Ooo, Hugo pooped" followed by a series of giggles. What is wrong with her I wondered, as I lay, what could possibly be funny about dog's excrement at 630am?

I got vertical and walked towards the awfulness. Hugo had exploded in 5 different spots in most rooms of the house. The option of one place just hadn't occured. In Hugo's defence, he was sick the day before as well. Angie discovered this after coming home, opening the door only to be met with Hugo's awfulness from head to paw. Angie said he seemed embarassed, which, embarassed enough to clean it up, I wondered? Angie hinted aloud on the phone if I might take some time off from work and deal with this, but I politely declined citing the work of the Lord as my defence. 4 baths later Hugo was clean. er.

Ah yes, did I mention the day before we had paid $80 to get him professionally groomed? Sadly its true, so if you've seen Murphy, let me know, I'd love to strangle him then burn his stupid laws.

As I headed to work after attending to the hilarious dog poop I decided to stop by the bank to check on the ol account. It was still there but there was some zero's missing. I drove to work distracted by the statement when I saw the red light. The problem was, I was already in the middle of the intersection and it was a big one. Lots of whizzing cars. Panicing, I continued through, holding up my hands at the other cars as if to say "please don't hit me, I just need to get through this intersection, k?" Everyone complied and I made it through but was greeted with flashing red lights. CRAP!!! I yelled, to no one in particular. (actually I wish that's what I yelled.) As I sat waiting for the inevitable tap on the window I thought about Hugo's poop and how it no longer seemed that bad. How on earth am I going to explain this?

Tap Tap Tap. I rolled down the window greeting the cop with a smile so big my dentist would have surely nodded with pride. "Do you have some sort of medical condition?" "You'd think so, I replied, but actually no, I just had a brain fart." Brain fart. That the best I could come up with. "Do you have a driver's license?" "I sure do," I said, a little too excitedly. I handed it to him and he looked it over. "You do realize this is a $250 fine?" "Yeh, I responded, looking at my crumpled up bank statement. "What do you do for a living," was his next question. I looked at him, smiled sheepishly, then said "actually, I'm a Pastor, and I'm just headed to work." His expression stayed the same as if his brain was still processing this ludicris information and hadn't yet told his face it's response. "A pastor eh." "Which church?" "Uh, actually it The Calgary Church of Christ, in Malborough, just behind the Mall." I thought about including -"you know, the church that is helping 700 homeless people get gifts this Christmas," but I didn't. The cop continued to look at me. I continued to sweat knowing there couldn't be a worse time for a $250 mistake. "Well, have a good day then, try to be more careful." "I sure will, I replied, way to cooperatively.

I still wonder why the cop didn't ticket me. I was clearly in the wrong, so much so the question of my mental health was on the table. Perhaps it was because he believed me, I was awfully honest. Maybe it was the "what kind of unfeeling Nazi gives a nice man a ticket 5 days before Christmas dynamic?" Maybe it was the whole Pastor thing. Like, God's birthday is just around the corner, better not mess with one of his employees. I'm not sure actually. But it was cool. And one of the better Christmas presents I've recieved.

John