I was out and about today when I drove by a “laser wash.” (Whatever happened to plain ol’ car washes?) I’m a big-time frugalista, so I decided that if they had a wash that cost $5 or less, I would get it. When I saw that the least expensive wash was $9, I drove straight through, deciding to have a dirty car for one more day… Besides, it looked like it was about to rain anyway.

As I drove out of the parking lot, I heard what might have been the loudest, most guttural utterance of “f*ck” I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’ve heard “f*ck” plenty of times in my 31 years. I looked to see what was going on and I saw a thirtysomething man standing outside of his car near the vacuum machine station, his brow furrowed as he stomped his feet a few times and stared up at the gray sky. Apparently, it had started to rain as he dried off his freshly-washed car… I then noticed an adorable little old lady in the passenger seat of his car. She was looking at him as if he were crazy for carrying on the way he was. You would have thought someone had totaled his car.

I laughed my ass off. It’s not that I took pleasure in his bad luck, but watching his reaction made me think of all the times I, too, have made a big deal out of something that, in the grand scheme of things, didn’t matter. I’ve worked on not letting little things get to me, and seeing that man today gave me another thing to consider the next time I want to give into over-reaction.

The next time something gets to us, we could all stand to do a bit of introspection to figure out of we’re taking it to the extreme. My guess is, more often than not, it’s just a little rain…