I woke up grumpy today. I slept well, but the alarm going off at 6 a.m. really ticked me off. I let my husband sleep for a few more minutes while I made coffee, still grumpy. I came back to bed and couldn’t get the covers up around me because they were tangled around my feet. My husband laughed at my antics, which didn’t help the grumpiness settling in on my brain.
I finally made it to my home office and looked out the window to a dull, gray day here in western Pennsylvania. No snow covers the ground to hide the yellowish green grass that is confused by the lack of winter thus far in January. I played solitaire because the muse also was grumpy this morning. I lost every game, and so I began the pity party made even more pitiful by my aloneness.
Then to make the mood even worse, I remembered that I needed to go out into the rain to put the Netflix movie in the mailbox before our delivery woman showed up. I walked outside and discovered the rain had stopped and the temperature wasn’t all that cold. I took a deep breath and walked down the driveway to the mailbox.
It came to me then. I may be Miss Grump this morning, but at least I don’t have to inflict it upon anyone else. The world doesn’t have to see me at my worst, and I don’t have to fake smiles or sincerity when all I want to do is go back to bed and start the day all over again. I don’t have to drive anywhere and be annoyed by the driver who fails to use his turn signal. I don’t have to push my cart around a woman who is so busy chatting on her cell phone in the grocery store she stops right in the middle of the aisle to talk about what she received for Christmas.
I don’t even have to answer the phone that just rang on my desk. So I turn back to my solitaire game and win a hand.
I’m feeling better already – but I’m still going to stay in my pajamas until I feel like taking a shower. There are hours before my husband returns home, and there’s plenty of time to pound out another chapter or even revise the one that begins: “The day started badly and never quite improved.”
After all, I’m writing fiction.
P.C. ZICK 