If I had to choose only one word to describe how this day was going, it would surely be CLUELESS, At least that's how it started. For a while, I thought I'd handled it better, a silly idea, bolstered by this year's first Iris blooming. Clearly visible from my favorite chair, as I started on my first cup of coffee.

Many other Irises are on the brink of showing, cradled by way too many flowerbed weeds, but I willed myself to ignore their ugliness, and sat awhile, drinking in the Iris along with morning coffee.

Throughout this lengthy time of still not being healed, most days I handle it very well. But today I was leaning much too close to negativity, and when the mail came, I got worse. Health insurance sent a legal looking notice that some of my coverage is denied. A few phone calls showed the problem can be fixed, but the dry and abrupt tone of one of them added nothing to the day. So instead of appreciating that the problem is OK, I kept holding on to the negativity I started the day with.

A while later someone knocked at my door. Perhaps, I thought, a neigbor's teenage son, looking for summer work. But as he started spilling out his approach, I knew he wasn't looking for flowerbed weeding, or other yard work, and certainly not sweat breaking painting house trim.

As soon as he tried convincing me he needed a huge number of credits to reach his goal, I should have stopped him there, saving each of of us some time, but the story he tried so hard to convince me with, was so far in left field, I decided to hear more of it, for future reference.

He said he's a home schooled student, and anyway, all of this is his mother's idea; that he needed to discuss career choices, and make eye contact with adults, as he talked. He asked what kind of work I do, and when I told him nursing, he jumped into a noble story about wanting to give medical care to the disadvanteged. But to do this, he must get a huge number of credits, from adults, like me.

He tried again to hand me information through the door about the credits, and this was after I refused to open it the first time. I just stood there, suprized that I hadn't caught on to his spiel sooner. Even on a good day, I wouldn't have bought whatever he's selling, but today wasn't a good one for any kind of door to door approach, and besides that, my leg was hurting. So I told him very carefully I would only say this once, that he needed to listen, and pick up his skate board, and head it for the road, and even then, he wanted to try his sales pitch again, but stuck his speech notes in his pocket, and did leave.

I couldn't believe how easily I let his big array of lies affect my day. Almost instantly, I had let him erase the beauty of the Iris from my head, and upset myself because today's youth aren't taught much responsibilty, or how to earn their pay, and their telling ballfaced lies is no longer considered breaking a serious moral law. I mean, what is this pitiful world coming to, anyway! I had worked myself into a mental frenzy, and I'll bet the young man did not waste one split second of a nan-o-moment thinking about me, except perhaps, to again inforce todays' youths, just how nutty little old ladies can be, as he sped down the road on his skate board.


About that same time, the phone rang, and someone who slurs her words and speaks rapidly, launched into a survey, and since I just cancelled some services, and changed some, to cut down on expenses, thought it odd that I'd be survey'd today.

Besides that, I was a little rung out from dealing with the door-to-door teenager, and wasn't up to another round of battling our wills. But this time, I simply let it go, and thanked her for calling, even though I didn't need to, and now I think I'll restart what's left of this day, and look at the Iris again.