The subtle art of living.

It can be challenging to go through life from day to day.

With everything bombarding us, we tend to become very overwhelmed, very quickly. Our washing machine goes off balance and suddenly we are crying for 15 hours in a tidal wave of mourning. Most people don’t manage change well within themselves.

This is why we develop coping skills. Some are very established. Some are fine for some people. Most don’t work for me. Is anyone surprised?

I am not the type of person who can stop myself in the middle of stress and breathe deeply while thinking of fuzzy bunnies. Oh no no no no! I am closer to the blow people up coping skill. Well, not ACTUALLY blowing people up. Just exploding them a little.

See, when someone pisses you off and you want to scream, you need to cope. I have them explode in my mind’s eye and usually imagine their head flying straight up into the air. The rest of them is just one flash with lots of smoke. It’s very therapeutic.

What could be more therapeutic? Except maybe imagining them naked in a bull fighting ring. I’m usually decent about it and give them that red cloth. But still. What a wonderful image to get when someone has pushed your buttons one too many times.

After you’ve imagined all those annoying personalities in various states of distress, I usually want to eat. KFC is good. You can get such satisfaction in eating a breaded and fried chicken breast with a warm glow all over you because your natural born enemy has been impaled onto a bull’s horn.

Of course, you could always plot revenge. I personally like to find my nemesis online. Once I have their address, I usually like to send them free catalogs. Hmmm. I think that I’ll send the priest the pagan jewelry catalog. Uh huh. And the snobish woman who thinks that she’s much better than everyone else? She gets the “Trailer Beautiful” catalog. So so sweet.

I hear you thinking. What about live and let live, Sam? Well, ok. Most of the time, I do live and let live. It’s those special circumstances which require special handling that I absolutely adore. And when they come my way, I am more than willing to rise to the occasion.

So what do I do when I am not thinking up some wonderful new coping skill?

I sit back and enjoy life. I love to watch kids play. They are truly crazy. They have no sense of social mores. They have no care to abide by decorum. And they think up the best stuff.

My nephews are great at it. Thinking up stuff. Once, the older boy duct taped the younger boy to the wall. Another time, they tried to flush a cat down the toilet. More recently they decided that they could dig to the middle of the earth. We are still trying to fill the hole my parents yard. I think that they almost made it before they were caught.

So, with my coping skills firmly in place, I am venturing out. On my way to work, or the grocery store, or to my parents house.

Sometimes, I wonder, though. How do people cope with me????

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.