Some wisdom from Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou posits that you can learn much about a person through observation of how they deal with three situations: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I understand what she’s getting at and even why she chose these three conditions. Most people would find each or all of them at best annoying and at worst, maddening.

The thing is, none of these situations is particularly troubling to me. We get enough rainy days where I live that dealing with precipitation is more a matter of deploying long-practiced technique than disruption of plans.

Lost luggage just doesn’t happen that often. Speaking as someone who flies on average thirty times a year and whose luggage has failed to arrive in place and on time  maybe three times in the last twelve years, I have to say it’s not the huge problem people would have you believe. And frankly, anyone who puts anything irreplaceable in checked luggage is simply not planning ahead. Okay, so yes, I did once attend the first day of a conference wearing jeans and a printed tee shirt. I lived through it.

Tangled Christmas tree lights are also not a problem I encounter. Mary and I put up enough lights to guide astronauts back from the moon and we’ve long since devised a method for wrapping them that leaves them pretty much tangle-free when it comes time to put them up again the next year.

I’m not trying to gloat here. Lots of situations do send me off my nut. Just not this three. And it doesn’t matter which three you choose because Maya is on to something. You truly can tell a lot about a person by how they manage in untoward situations.