Rainy Days, Lost Luggage, and Tangled Lights

Maya Angelou said this: "I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage,

and tangled Christmas tree lights."

Now that the holidays are upon us, I’ve dealt with two out of these three in the last few weeks. Happily, not the lost luggage. Although, it’s not hard to imagine how I would handle this—with lots of frustration, especially if I had a work in progress or even a good book in the missing bag. However, I’d be reminding myself not to kill the messenger. The person delivering the bad news that my luggage went missing in action probably wouldn’t be the same person who hurled my bags out the back of the plane somewhere over Missouri.

As for a rainy day. . . Well, if I have the luxury of staying inside and I have my good book and my trusty laptop (assuming they didn’t get lost with the luggage), bring on the sloppy weather.

Christmas lights are another story. No matter how hard I try to wrap these little buggers while taking them off the tree, they somehow tangle themselves in the basement from January until the following December. Every year I curse them and call them ugly names. It doesn’t help that while unknotting and detangling, I am thinking about how much writing I could be getting done.

What conclusions might Maya Angelou draw from these scenarios? Probably that I adore writing, revising, and reading enough that I get cranky when life keeps me from indulging in them. Something tells me she’d understand.

How about you? How do you handle rainy days, lost luggage, and tangled lights? What does this say about you?

Wishing all of you a very merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah!