Redemption

After all the comments about the hotel shower knob last night, I took a freezing cold shower this morning in Oklahoma City. At 5AM I was not laughing. And I still was not laughing when I was told by the clerk that this less than two year old hotel has had problems with the hot water system since the hotel was constructed. So it was not me after all.

There was one small consolation. The last time I stayed at that hotel it was snowing and very cold. If I had taken the cold shower then that I took today, I guess it would have been worse. But I was not in a good mood when I left that hotel this morning.


But my perspective changed really quickly when I got to Will Rogers Airport this morning. I wanted to ask these young soldiers pictured here where they were from but I didn’t want to wake them up. These young men are heading to Iraq to be separated from their families for who knows how long and put themselves in harms way to protect my freedom and I’m complaining because my shower wasn’t hot. I definitely had a reality check.

The guy that had his head on the other guy’s shoulder had no idea his head was on his buddy’s shoulder. But the guy with the shoulder did know. He woke up and looked and smiled and went back to sleep. I smiled and grabbed my camera. And my day had been redeemed.


After I left the office tonight I headed to a local Holiday Inn to speak to the National Association of Retired Federal Employees. Because I was dog tired and because of my experience Monday night that I wrote about, I was not excited about speaking tonight. But as soon as I walked in the packed banquet room, I had a feeling it was going to be a blast.

This crowd was greater than great. They were laughing and feeding this speaker and feeding each other. Electricity was in the air and they were thoroughly entertained. It is incredible how basically the same stories I told Monday night to a seemingly distant audience could get the crowd tonight in high gear and laughing hysterically out loud. I remembered tonight why I started speaking in the first place.

This day began horrifically with a freezing cold shower. It ended 1000 miles away and 17 hours later with a standing ovation.

My day was definitely redeemed.