Well, I learned that one the hard way.

I'm trying to be better, I really am,   Apparently, I need to try harder.

If there's such a thing as death by a thousand paper cuts, Saturday's trip to the get my car emissions tested place was cut 998.

My truck passed the emissions test.  My truck had a vacuum leak.  A tee fitting that goes to the engine's PCV valve has deteriorated in the 20 years of ownership, to the point I needed a new one.  I have the new one on order.  It's a dealer item.  Most vehicles have elbows on their PCV vales.  Mine has a tee.

Because my temporary plates expired on Saturday, I tried the temp repair with electrical tape.  To me, it's a temporary repair.  To the inspector, it's tampering.  He wouldn't re-test it.  Aggravated already, and just beat down by every little thing, and then the look on the guy's face,...

(I need to stop here and tell you that I've been warned about what I did next.  I'm trying to work on it.  I'm now trying harder.)

...I muttered "Really?"  Apparently, dude heard me and wasn't in the mood to let it go.  Which is a good thing.  He called me out for it and I had to do some damage control.  I apologized, told him it was just me having a bad day, and that it wasn't meant to him, which it kind of wasn't.  I got the speech about him just doing his job.  I told him it's all good, that the part was on order, and that I'd bring it back Wednesday.

Had I known I couldn't just MacGuyver it, I could have saved myself a whole bunch of trouble and not wasted his time.  But I learned something.  And it wrecked my day, because I felt like crap for being such a jerk.

Whether or not the guy was being one himself is irrelevant.  It wasn't his fault my truck wasn't right.  It was mine.  Could he cut me some slack?  I thought so, I guess.  But he didn't and it's not my job on the line.  It's his.

Lesson learned.

Actually, I have a lot of respect for this guy.  He had integrity.  I had a big mouth.

I had to start looking at why I was upset.  I'm still on this incredible adventure, but every single time I make plans, something goes not how I planned it.  My kids were supposed to be here yesterday at three.  They came at five.  I wanted to go pick some cherries I was given permission to go get.  I'm grateful to spend time with my kids, so the cherry picking didn't happen.  It didn't happen today, either. I had to do some work on my shower.  I had to do laundry.  I had cherries in the fridge and Miss June kindly pitted them for me, so I had to jam them and bottle them.

And even that didn't work out right.  I only bought one box of pectin, thinking I only had enough cherries for one batch.  I had enough for two.  The store by my house was out of pectin, so I got to go to Walmart.  I have a spare box now.

It can get frustrating sometimes.  And I think I was letting my frustration get to me when I got to learn a lesson yesterday.

Sometimes we blow it.  I made a judgment about something and it turns out I was wrong, but I'd opened my mouth on Facebook about it so I got to apologize there, too.

I'm learning silence sometimes is appropriate.  And then there are times when silence is complicity.  I refuse to be complicit in some things by holding my tongue, but then opportunities come along to partner up with what someone else says about a matter that has more authority and more eloquence than yours truly.  Tonight I shared on Facebook, a letter to our Attorney General from American Baptist Churches, USA.  They weren't silent.

Finally!

But for me, silent is sometimes a good thing to be.  I'm hoping this incident helps me learn this lesson.  I might think it in my head but there is and needs to be a filter between that and my mouth.

I'm trying.

I really am.