Jill Pertler

It was a go-to-the-store-for-laundry-detergent-come-home-with-fabric-softener kind of day, and it happened to me.

Of course it did.

But hey, everyone has bad days. Not one of us has a corner on that market, and bad days are in the eye of the beholder. I think about this when I’m having a bad day, but sometimes I don’t want to listen to my own good advice. Sometimes, I just get off on feeling sorry for myself and my no-good supremely bad day.

I sometimes think we have to feel lousy once in awhile. It makes us appreciate the better times. The days when our socks match. The days when we locate the car keys without even trying. (Ditto that for sunglasses.) The days when we get nothing but green lights on our way to work. The days when we go to throw the washed load into the dryer and our spouse has beat us to the task. The days when the sun is shining on the coldest of winter days. The days when we find the one can of chicken noodle soup left in the pantry. The days when we start (or finish) a really great book. (Double ditto that for a Netflix series.) The days when the family is all home for supper. Anything that makes us laugh from the belly. The days when we go to the store for laundry detergent and actually come home with the goods.

Which brings us full circle to the fabric softener.

What is it with labels these days? There are so many details. So many choices. Why not make the fabric softener label a different color (or something) than the detergent label? I don’t want to look at details when I’m shopping. I don’t want to pay attention at all, but it has become a necessity. I consider a trip to the grocery store successful if I don’t come home with an inadvertent can or two of low-sodium green beans.

But you know what? It happens. There are an unlimited number of grocery snafus lurking in the aisles. Choosing the mega-strong toilet paper when you were trying for mega-soft. (There’s a packaging conundrum I don’t have the time or space to address). Salt without the iodine. Buying the regular paper towels versus the pick-a-size. Orange juice with too much pulp or too little calcium, or maybe both. Crunchy peanut butter when you wanted creamy. Those green beans I alluded to earlier.

Stuff happens. It’s going to happen and it’s going to happen to you. It’s going to happen to all of us. What we do with it defines who we are.

Let’s just say (hypothetically speaking) you went to the store for laundry detergent but came home with fabric softener. Unlikely, I know, but some silly soul may have experienced this improbable reality. What does a person do in such a scenario?

She doesn’t let it ruin her day. She laughs at the mistake. She understands she has one load of laundry that needs to be washed in the next 24 hours and she doesn’t want to make a return trip to the store. So, she gets creative. Washing clothes is similar to what? You don’t want a ton of lather but you need cleaning action. I opted for shampoo. Just a bit. Enough to get the grease and grime off the dirty clothes. You know what? It worked. I got a clean load without going back to the store. I still have the extra fabric softener, but that is not going to spoil my day, much less my life. If I let a little thing like fabric softener ruin my day, what does that say about the overall scheme of things?

Not much. Maybe too much.