Oh gosh! My hands!
I looked at both hands in disbelief.
Contaminated.
My stomach sank. I'd just polished off a breakfast sandwich ... with my hands ... the contaminated hands. And now it was in me. There was no going back.
Let me explain.
It all started yesterday ...
I was having a bad day. Just awful. A hectic morning was building up to a midday mental meltdown. I was out on my lunch break just wanting to grab a quick bite, but nothing sounded good and everything, everywhere was crowded.
I settled on a soup-and-sandwich kind of place and was in a long and not-moving line when I got a call on my cell. It was of a personal nature and I didn't want to miss the call, so being courteous to those around me, I stepped out of line to take the call. It was disappointing news and I was not happy.
I was also no longer in line.
Approximately 4,000 other people got in line ahead of me.
Approximately.
I decided to take my disappointment and sinking mood elsewhere. As I was backing my car out, another car zoomed passed and almost clipped me. Startled, I decided this was definitely not the place for me.
I was trying to process the news I'd received in the call and also trying to decide lunch. I hadn't been feeling well and was now feeling worse, at least emotionally, and so I wanted to make a food selection that wouldn't ruin my day physically.
I opted for a sandwich shop that was in a gas station near my office. The thing was, everyone else was there too (crazy crowded) and, yet again, my car was nearly bumped by another car with a distracted cell-phone-talking driver.
I ventured across the street to a fast-food grill, hoping for some reasonably healthy fare, but instead was cutoff by another car for a parking spot and nearly rear-ended by another who was also going for the spot. I tried to maneuver out of the way of the way, and was met by another car that was going the wrong way.
It's like cars were falling out of the sky and trying to land on mine in some sort of divine video game.
Also? People were lined up out the door at the restaurant.
I was rattled to the core and considered just going back to the office and eating Twizzlers - you know, the ones with the filling. Yum!
But I was shaky and needed more sustenance than that. So I got out of that cramped parking lot and headed down the parkway toward a chicken place that sells good salads.
The drive-thru line was 10 - yes, 10! - deep and the parking lot packed.
I pulled into a neighboring bank parking lot and cried. I just wept. For my frustration. For my disappointment. For my rattled nerves. For my growling tummy. For the wasted gas. For knowing that if I had just gotten back in line at the first place, I would probably be eating my soup now. I cried.
Once I got my cry out, I wiped the smeared mascara from my now-irritated eyes, and headed back to the gas station sandwich shop near my office. Lunch rush over, the parking lot was clear. There was no counter line. Things were looking up for me.
And then it happened.
My hands were full. I was balancing my bag of food, an open drink, my purse, a handful of dollar bills and coins, all while standing at the drink station trying to get a lid on my soda. The full soda started to slip from my hands and I turned to catch it - and dropped all the coins into the trash.
Seventy-one cents fell out of my hand and into the countertop trash bin. And, with nary a thought, I reached in and picked 60 cents of it back out ... of the trash.
I reached in.
I reached in the trash.
I reached in the trash in a fast food restaurant.
I reached in the trash in a fast food restaurant in a gas station.
And then I realized what I'd done.
Oh gosh, I reached in the trash in a fast food restaurant in a gas station!
Horrified and completely baffled by why I didn't just donate 71 cents to the landfill, I shuffled everything to my clean left hand and hit the door. I managed to get in the car and basically just drop everything into its rightful place while retrieving the hand sanitizer from the console.
I popped the sanitizer's lid, aimed for my right hand ... and the lid shot off, dumping the entire container all over me - my slacks, my blouse and thankfully, my right hand.
Back at the office, I washed my hands - more than once - and finally settled at my desk to eat. I was shaking with hunger. With my very first bite, I took out a chunk of the inside of my mouth.
Not a pinch to the cheek. It was a flesh-spittng chunk.
I was hungry, with mascara-smeared red eyes, a bloody mouth, and covered in antibacterial goo. Add my hazmat hand to that, and I could have been a zombie from The Walking Dead mindlessly ambling about the office.
My afternoon got better. I recovered from my disappointment, pulled myself together and drove home unscathed.
... And then today ....
In the back-to-school rush of the morning today (yes, we started school already yesterday), I stopped off for a quick breakfast via drive-thru. My total was $2.60. Hey, what do you know ... exact change in the console.
Exact change.
From the trash.
From the trash in a fast food restaurant.
From the trash in a fast food restaurant in a gas station yesterday.
And now the change had traveled ... from the trash ... to my hand ... to the console ... to my hand again this morning ... and without thinking about it until it was too late ... to my food ... to my mouth this morning.
Hey - I'm ok.
Despite my freak-out this morning at the realization that I had not entirely escaped my rotten luck of the previous day, I got through today just fine without triggering a zombie plague.
Some days are like that and we all dread them. It seems like the universe is out to get us at every turn. But we gotta walk through the messy days, past the dread. Just when we think we've conquered our demons, they rise back at us to take another turn.
We have to face our challenges and get our hands dirty - in the parking lot, in the trash bin, in our own minds. Avoidance just drags out our worries, distracts us, makes us linger on the negative, keeps us from focusing on the right things.
[And wastes a lot of time and gas during our lunch break.]
Just remember, life's ick isn't the end of the world. Shake it off. Wash it off - literally - if you have to.
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