Grace

I am not the most grace-giving person in the world. I am highly structured and like everything in its place. Things like bad drivers, people who search for their change while at the counter, and people who take up inefficient space while walking slowly in front of a person really annoy me. My nitpickiness was turned around on me this past week.

I thought I only needed 5 hours more of continuing education to renew my PT license. So I read three stupid con ed articles and took the stupid con ed test over the articles worth 2 hours each. That equals 6 hours. I was ahead of the game. I was an ace student. I had 1 hour more than the standard. Oh, pride comes before a big fall.

Then I received the letter. I had attended a class while living in California that gave me 16 hours of con ed credit. Unfortunately in the state where I now have my license one has to have out-of-state classes approved by The Board. You fill out a form and give all the information you can. I gave the company website with the class schedule when submitting my form. The Board went onto the company's website and counted the hours minus breaks and lunch and regretfully could only give me 14 hours of credit for this class. Alas I was 1 hour short now. Gone were the days of being ahead.

I decided that I was going to make the best of a nitpicky world. After all I myself am prone to this. The husband printed off an article that sounded interesting to me along with the "recommended" readings. He even stayed with the baby while I took the said article to Starbucks.

I got to Starbucks, ordered my tall decaf coffee with room for cream and a moist, delicious looking piece of pumpkin loaf. (It is the Christmas season after all and what can make one feel more Christmasy than pumpkin loaf?) I was set. My strategy was to read the article, browse through the supplemental material, and then mark the answers to the test on a separate sheet before I took the test online. I settled down in to a chair in the nice air-conditioned Starbucks with my jacket (it's still well over 70 degrees where I live) and popped some decadent pumpkin bread into my salivating mouth. Life was pretty good even if it was a non grace-giving world.

I sipped my coffee and read. And read. And read. "This article is really long and very technical," I thought. I looked at the test after I finished reading. Hum. These questions are weird and don't really match up with what I read. I went through every question and tried to find them in the article. I sipped my coffee. I highlighted. I started to panic. The pumpkin bread diminished. The Starbucks atmosphere was wearing on me. "Who has to put on the stupid air in the middle of December anyway?", I thought to myself. I started to get angry. There were at least 4 questions that I could NOT find. I loaded up and headed home feeling that life was indeed a veil of tears and there was no justice in the world.

I got home. In a foul mood. The luster of life was gone. I was going to fail. I was never going to get to practice PT again because I was going to fail, be unable to renew my license, and I would have a black mark on my record. My husband thought I was being irrational because I tore my "recommended reading" in half and threw it across the room. I guess.

Then we found it. The real article in the bag my husband brought home. I had gotten all the supplemental material, but forgotten the one important article. Feeling a bit sheepish I quickly read through the easy article, answered the test questions online, passed the test, and renewed my license.

Whew. Hum. Maybe I should tell The Board they aren't very grace-giving? No, I guess not. Maybe the next time the lady counts her pennies at the counter at Starbucks I'll look away.