This is an extra story for you.

Now, I know. Drama is intensely per­sonal. You no doubt think that what­ever you are fac­ing is “really, really big,†and other people’s drama pales in com­par­i­son. And, you can’t for the life of you fig­ure out why oth­ers do not see the awful ter­ri­ble­ness of your issues, which you know are real, and scary.

Our sim­ple Zen approach, then, seems per­fect for every­one else, but not for you. Or, you “get it†with your head, but know that it won’t work in real­ity. (As you con­ve­niently for­get that you cre­ated that real­ity, along with the drama.)

So, let me tell you just an odd lit­tle story. Back in Octo­ber, Dar­bella and I were dri­ving down the 401, and I noticed a vibra­tion through the steer­ing wheel. Long story short, one of the belts had screwed up in one of our tires. We made it to Kal Tire. I men­tion them for rea­sons that will become obvious.

We knew we needed new tires, and had decided to put on snow tires. We hoped our crappy all-seasons could then go back on for a few months. In talk­ing to the guys at Kal, we dis­cov­ered that they had an All Weather tire that is cer­ti­fied as a snow tire, and also can stay on year round. One set of tires! Yay! 850 bucks later, out the door we went.

These are great tires. First snow, han­dled just like snows, yet feel like reg­u­lar tires on dry pavement.

Here comes the Zen part!

We were in Toronto this past week­end, check­ing out Tut. We decided to beat it home, ahead of weather. I got in the car and drove to the door of our hotel, to pick up Dar­bella and our lug­gage. For just a sec­ond, I lost focus.

I nicked the gran­ite curb.

Poof! The right pas­sen­ger tire exploded (well, it blew a rasp­berry, actu­ally.) Flat tire. Flat, 2 month old tire. Flat 200 dol­lar tire. With a slit in the side of it. Pooched.

“Coin­ci­den­tally,†about a month ago, I bought unlim­ited road­side assis­tance. So, a nice guy showed up, and changed the tire for us.

“Coin­ci­den­tally,†there was a Kal Tire 5.6 km down the road.

Here’s the non-Zen part: all the way to the tire place, I was a bit hard on myself. For not pay­ing atten­tion. For hit­ting the curb. For cost­ing us 200 bucks. Dar men­tioned how she some­times gave her­self grief over things she’d done in the car, and encour­aged me to get out what I needed to get out, and then to move on.

I made myself quite mis­er­able over the con­se­quences of my inat­ten­tion, then had a breath, and real­ized the following:

We arrived at Kal Tire. They were clos­ing early for their Xmas Party, but the tech­ni­cian winked and said they’d fit us in. The guy then looked at the tire. “Yup. That one’s garbage. You’ll need a new one. Let me check the computer.â€

Now, it had taken them, in Octo­ber, a week to get the tires. He clicks, smiles, and says, “Got some in stock, and we’ll get it on before the party!â€

We sat, waited, read. I thought, “Well, great. Get­ting the tire replaced so eas­ily is won­der­ful, and 200 bucks is a small price to pay to be reminded to pay attention.â€

At 2:45, the guy walks over, and hands me the paperwork.

“Job’s done. That tire had 3000km. on it, and we pro­vide all haz­ards insur­ance on all our tires. So, no cost to you! Merry Xmas!â€

We walked out, laugh­ing a bit, over the drama I had cre­ated. Had a great lunch.

And I LOVE KAL TIRE!

But of course this lit­tle story is just fluff, and has noth­ing at all to do with your big, scary dramas.

Right?

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