Cranky Day

Well, apparently it is Cranky Day in Small Town.

I call this a failure of technology: None of my iPhone alerts warned me of what the day would bring, although they did remind me of two appointments I had already cancelled.

But so far this morning I have taken phone calls from (a) one person who was irritated because we had changed her mailing address on her permanent record (as directed by the Post Office, an official government agency) and she was concerned about "who else might find me?", and from (b) a community member who cannot choose between a lecture and a play going on tonight and apparently believes that's my fault. I've also opened one (c) "please unsubscribe me immediately but I'm not going to tell you why" e-mail, as well as an e-mail from (d) someone who had thought (mistakenly) that her message would be in today's e-message to the campus.

Of all of these issues, guess which one is totally and unequivocally my fault? Also, guess which person was the most gracious and pleasant to deal with? If you guessed (d) in both cases, you are the winner of the Cranky Day Grand Prize.

I know, I know. Just by writing this post I have qualified myself to participate in Cranky Day, but at least I'm trying my best to stay out of the fray. I have followed my standard steps in determining how severely to beat myself around the head and shoulders in response to these complaints: A couple minutes of fact-finding in which I determine if I can fix the problem, a couple minutes fixing the problem if possible and apologizing in any case because no matter whose fault the problem was someone felt bad, a couple of minutes of feeling bad for the other person, a couple of minutes feeling bad for myself.

Then I take my coffee break and run to the yarn shop, where I buy some delicious silk yarn that just arrived in town yesterday, and just like that, Cranky Day is over. Deep breath, and smile.

Next time, morning alerts, don't fail me. My unfinished crafts stash can't hold many more Cranky Day projects.