What I Learned from Katie Fisher Day: A Story with a Moral

Today is Katie Fisher Day!  Check it out here!  Get into it.

Cliff notes: It's about kindness, cookies, and friendship.  In summary: Bake. Send. Love.

I must admit that even while I write those words my inner monologue is singing, "These are a few of my favorite things!"  (The Julie Andrews' version, not Carrie Underwood's, just to be clear.)

And I'm here to tell you that even at the brisk pace of oncoming events, Katie Fisher Day, and by extension Katie herself, taught me a life lesson yesterday.  In celebrating her life, she gave me a story with a moral.  And since today is, at its essence, her day, I felt it only appropriate to pass on that life lesson to all of you.  Cause it's a good one.

See.  Here's the thing.  My wife made the first four boxes Katie Fisher Day cookies, then packaged them up and got them ready for delivery.  She even was accommodating enough to stack the boxes neatly on the table nearest the front door.

"Pretty boxes, on the table side. Pretty boxes filled with cookie cookies!"

When I woke up a few hours later, I began into my daily routine of walking and then settling our two dogs on their corresponding bed/crate.  With the dogs bribed with treats and laying down, I then sneak out the front door and embark on my day.

Sitting at lunch a few hours later, I make a mental note to remember to swing by the Post Office on the way home.  And then I realize that I don't have the cookies.  Crap.  I need go get those cookies.

And then . . .

THE COOKIES ARE IN THE SAME ROOM AS THE DOGS!!!!!!!!!

The delicious chocolate chip goodies that my amazing wife baked, tupper-wared, wrapped, and packaged are at the mercy of my admitted flour-loving addict of a pup.  And then, there is the problem that the cookies are chocked full of chocolate chips, which is horrifically poisonous for dogs.  DEFCON 1! DEFCON 1!

As this bowling ball of growing anxious worry hurdled towards pins full of multiplying problems, I am settling the check and one foot out the door.  I sped home.  I figured if I did get pulled over that A) it would make a fantastic story and B) If the cop was a dog lover I could potentially get a short police escort the rest of the way home.

As I burst through the front door, our smaller dog looked up excitedly from inside his crate.  Our older dog, Grover, was nowhere to be found.

On the table by the door lay the four boxes.  Untouched and angelic.

Grover had somehow gotten out of the living room and into the main part of the house that is supposed to remain blocked off by baby gates.  As the prestige to this Houdini maneuver, Grover had chewed the edges off his food bin awaiting his arrival on the opposite side of the barricade. The bin, a heavy duty plastic Tupperware container large enough to comfortably fit a small child inside, had additionally been heaved around the room as if it were a beach ball.  Miraculously, The handle locks remained un-popped, and the bad dog hadn't actually gotten into his food supply.

As a husband and as a dog owner, this was HUGE double victory.  The probability of the scene I arrived home to only requiring the  basic "scold and sweep up," was as thin as a slice of a rich double-chocolate torte.

Guilty!

You really shouldn't admonish your dog that he's "bad" with a huge smile smacked across your face, but I couldn't hide the giddiness of narrowly avoiding a true disaster.  I didn't even sweep up the plastic bits strewn about until later that evening.  I did bring those white boxes of kindness and carbohydrates carefully to the back seat of my car.  I then drove directly to the United States Post Office closest my home location.  No stops.  The cookies are officially "in the mail."
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Did you catch the lesson?  I admit it's not one of those morals that jumps right out at you.  In all honesty, most of the best one's don't, as they require a bit of introspection.  Here it is:

Whatever you are afraid of, worrying about, stressing over, overanalyzing . . . probably isn't worth all that perseverating. So relax. Not because there isn't anything out there to be concerned about.  It is just that the calamity that will actually befall you, could almost never have been seen coming.

Thanks Katie, I really needed that reminder.  #KatieFisherDay