WOOT or OOTW

Got a problem? Nothing like a coffee to help clarify, or at least get the mind back where it belongs.  Usually by Friday my brain has decided that the constant demand for incongruous thought, the unfathomable intricacies of keeping in balance the finely tuned instrument that is called ‘the coffee house’ and the ceaseless bombardment of immediate crisis, has been beyond what it actually signed up for and without consideration goes off for an unscheduled wander by itself.

This Friday in particular was no exception and so I reverted to my ‘sit with a dazed expression on my face while drinking a Chemex’ position.

I looked back on this past week and had the vague feeling there was something that had been lurking around all week. Just out of sight, almost materializing… but not quite. My wifey noticed me not quite sipping my coffee kind of swaying with a perplexed look.  Lesley hesitated a moment, not sure if she should politely ask what was wrong, because most people sitting with a worried look actual think it’s an invitation to share their problem.

This is an unwritten universal law that polite inquiry as to one’s circumstances is not in fact an invitation to share them but a polite acknowledgement that the asker recognizes a dilemma and is simply offering a form of condolence. However, these laws are superseded by the law of coffee that governs the coffee house. The place of – no subject is taboo and every universal problem can be sorted out over great coffee.

 This being such a place and being prepared for the suspension of universal societal convention, she asked anyway. I kind of ummed and ahhed and said I didn’t quite know. Looking back on the week there seemed to be something, but not quite something.

My sagacious Lesley knew exactly what it was I couldn’t see. She said, “Michael” (I knew I was going to be ‘told’, that’s Lesley’s name for me when I’m about to be … well … told), “What you can’t quite see is that it has been one of those weeks!”

Suddenly, “WOOT” the heavens opened and angels sang; realization spread through like far-infra-red rays, it had in fact been “OOTW”, One Of Those Weeks.

Obscurity leaves, mind returns from its aimless wandering. It has indeed been one of those weeks. It began on Monday with a series of issues that required significant effort to correct, followed by an endless series of inane events demanding the all-encompassing engagement of crisis management and finally ended with our baking oven deciding that, like my brain, it too was needing to go on an aimless wander requiring the services of a skilled technician to coax it back into service.

So, having solved Monday’s crisis by Thursday, having crisis-managed a series of in-house glitches seeking to disrupt coffee house harmony and coaxing our temperamental baking oven that it was in fact worth returning to the world of baking, I was able to relax and enjoy my Chemex.

Crisis OOTW has been managed and asked politely to vacate the premises thank you very much.