It's not you, it's me, REALLY!

Last Thursday I had to buy shoes for DD. She claims that all of her shoes (except her dressy shoes, which I am trying hard to preserve until Passover in at least semi-decent shape, and which she tries to find any excuse to wear) were too small. All three pairs got small almost overnight - what a coincidence, expecially given the fact that she was anxious to wear her dressy pair! On the other hand, she grew a lot during the winter, so it was reasonable to assume that her feet grew too. (The exam to see how much space was left between her big toe and the shoe proved inconclusive.) So I ran out during lunch and bought her a pair.

When it was time to go home, I ran out quickly because it was getting late, and the work didn't seem to diminish. It always happens when we close the month, and sometimes the only thing to do is just to run; otherwise, it is tempting not to leave a task half-done. As soon as the elevator door closed behind me, I realized that I left the shoes behind. It started the whole dilemma: do I go back to get the shoes or not? On the one hand, it was very late already, I had to run a lot of errands, and even five minutes would make a difference at this point. On the other hand, if all of her shoes were too small, I didn't want DD to suffer another minute. Quite often my indecisiveness drives me mad. At times it seems that decision-making takes longer than taking either one of the options available. And many times, the dilemmas are solved by an insignificant event.

I was deep within my thoughts, when all of a sudden the elevator doors opened four floors below mine, and guy walked in. Ta-da: here was my event. (WARNING! WARNING! YOU ARE ABOUT TO WITNESS THE THOUGHT PROCESS OF A CRAZY PERSON. YOU MIGHT GET SUCKED INTO HER CRAZINESS. IF WEAK, SICK OR OTHERWISE UNSTABLE, STOP READING NOW! Ok, I warned you...) Since the elevator didn't go all the way down to the first floor, I would not waste as much time going back to the office and picking up the shoes (Hitting that floor number button myself and not going all the way to the first floor, would've never occured to me). I made a run for it just as the elevator doors started closing, and caught a glimpse of a guy who entered the elevator. His entire body and being wordlessly screamed, "I am not a rapist! Why are you running from me?" I think that not even for a minute he considered that I simply left something in the office. (To give him credit, from an objective person's perspective it didn't look like it either.)

So here's the lesson that I (tried to) learn from this whole thing: when someone behaves badly/erratically/seemingly crazy, chances are it's not you. They are not upset at you, you didn't do anything wrong, you just ended up being in the wrong elevator at the wrong time.

P.S. The bag with the shoes was left lying next to my door on Friday and during the entire weekend, forgotten until this morning. So in the big picture, my decision didn't make much of a difference.