This Post Stinks!

It is said that Luther, or some other zippy and fun historical theologian, these really were party guys, said that us humans amounted to little more than a 'snow covered dung heap'. A lovely image that, but it came to mind this morning as I considered my behaviour last night. We'd arrived at our hotel after driving through a horrific storm from Killarney in the heart of County Kerry to a hotel near the airport in Dublin. It had felt that all the Gods of Ireland had conspired to lash us with wind and rain throughout most of the journey. We were tired. We'd left warm company in Kerry and rolled through cold weather into our hotel.

Given our key we headed to the room.

It wasn't accessible.

I threw a fit.

A patient clerk explained that the room had recently been converted from accessible to non-accessible and hadn't been changed in the system yet. We were given a key to the new room. Once in, there was a small problem in the washroom and we needed maintenance to come to the room. Instead the manager arrived to double check the problem and determine a quick course of action. When she asked if everything else was OK, I spoke up and grumbled about getting the wrong room, complained about rolling up and back - down carpeted hallways at that. She said she understood and then said, 'I'll speak to the clerk about the problem.'

Suddenly, though I was still feeling grumpy and tired, I realized something. The 'pile of dung' that was my soul was steaming and I'm afraid the shit was showing through. Not a pleasant thought but it brought me up short.

As the manager was leaving, I said, 'Wait!'

Then I said, 'I'm making way more out of this than I should be, I'm tired, I'm grumpy and I want to be angry at someone. So, I'm being angry at the clerk and the hotel, it's not fair, I know that, but I can't stop myself. There is nothing to talk to the clerk about, the problem was solved quickly and efficiently, I just want to be mad.'

I'm proud of myself.

You see, the whole time I was saying it I was still really, really mad. Silly mad. Two year old temper tantrum mad. But I still managed to cool down a little bit.

Enough for a bit of snow to fall on the steaming dung and cover up the part of my personality I'd rather look frosty white rather than steaming brown.