My own private rainbow

Apparently, some popular tv show last week featured a guy who decided that he didn't want to have a vasectomy because, should something happen to his family, he would want to have a backup wife and children at some point. The radio DJs were angry, yapping for twenty minutes about the horrors of spouses imagining life after their mates. Well, I also have a back-up plan. It is not uncommon. If Mike meets a gruesome fate, I will become a nun and plant tomatoes all day in Eastern Europe while Gavin moons around in the abbey windows with a french novel and dreams of running off with the scullery maid.

I flipped stations. Things got worse. Coldplay crooned miserably about wanting to fix me. I drove by a dead kitten in the road. Normally, I avert my eyes, but it was dark and I looked in its face as my headlights swept by, and I nearly cried. The radio DJs had stopped yammering and ironically played American Idiot as I pulled up to the school. The sky was icy blue and my legs were chilly as limped across the gravel because I stepped on a bee last night. 

After only 6 hours of sleep, I was looking forward to opening my new box of Yogi tea when I got to the staff snack area. Peach redbush chai. As I took a nice deep sniff of the hot tea, a fat brown cockroach twirled gracefully to the surface. I dumped it down the drain and went back to the library.

Unflagging optimism. Each day as I drive home from work through the Misty Mountains, a small rainbow forms over me. It curves from one side of the highway to the other, coloring the guard rails. As I drive out of the tunnel, the sun cuts over the mountains and lights up the mist in the valley. That's worth a few cockroaches in my tea.