Choosing joy in the bathroom

Yesterday our pastor talked about how being joyful is a choice that we have to make. We have to choose joy over all the other emotions fighting for top priority. I'm not a jolly person by nature (I'm more of a practical pessimist), so I have to make a conscious effort to choose joy repeatedly, all day long.

Last night while Mike was taking out the garbage, he noticed a lot of grossness in the bottom of the garbage can. Normally I would take it outside and hose it out, but since it's too cold for that, I put it in the tub and bleached it. I had to remind myself to choose joy.

This morning, the toilet was clogged. People continued to deposit all kinds of bodily waste in it, and it was all swirling around near the rim. I got the plunger and started plunging. Apparently there's some skill involved in plunging, and I lack it. I ended up shoving the plunger too deep into the hole, and the rubber part got stuck in there. I had to yank it as hard as I could to get it out, and it popped out with such force that it splattered the contents of the toilet all over me.

I'm ashamed to admit that in circumstances like this one, the first thing that comes to my mind (and/or out of my mouth) is not G-rated. Thankfully, this time, the only thing that instinctively came out of my mouth was, "Oh, shoot!" I took that as evidence that my character growth is progressing (oh-so-slowly) in the right direction, so even though I was dripping in filth, I chose joy.

My next move, obviously, was to get in the shower. As I was showering, I noticed that the water was not draining out of the tub, so I was ankle-deep in the filth that I had washed off myself. (Normally a writer's goal is to cause the reader to imagine what she's writing about, but in this case, if you're actually reading this, I wouldn't encourage you to develop a mental picture of what happens next, because it involves me, naked, crouched in a pool of yuck, pulling yuck out of the drain.) I turned off the water and unscrewed the drain plug. I started pulling out clumps of hair until I ended up with a ball of hair the size of a small rodent. Since the water then started draining, I chose joy.

I was still hunched over the little hair-rodent when the shower head fell out of the wall and landed on me. It was very, VERY hard to choose joy at that moment....but I did.