Life doesn’t go to plan

If this year has taught me anything so far it is this, things very rarely work out the way you planned. Pretty sure that we can all agree on that.

Granted this is something that my mum has told me repeatedly over the years. Anytime I spent a ridiculous about of time planning, stressing about every detail and ultimately being disappointed when things went wrong.

Things don’t always work out the way plan them.

Mum can tell me this all she wants but that will not stop me from over planning everything I possibly can.

I was meant to be getting married Saturday. It’s still happening, just later this year. I’m not salty about the fact that the weather was perfect. Or that Sunday was the perfect weather for me to snuggle up with my new husband. I love a good storm.

Scratch that. I’m totally salty. If November’s weather isn’t just as perfect I’m going to be hella pissed.

Saturday wasn’t a total waste though. Matt and I started the day by babysitting our friend’s two little boys while they finished off the paving down the side of the house. Then in the afternoon we headed off to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for a long overdue family dinner.

Seriously overdue. Since WA had the restrictions tightened back in March, which also led to family gatherings being restricted, my family has had three birthdays (both my brothers and my dad), plus Easter and Mother’s Day. So we had a family dinner.

Might I say, it was delightful. Matt and I headed over early so I could do a jigsaw puzzle with my niece. Let me tell you, for someone who was very upset the last time I saw her that I couldn’t stay and finish the puzzle with her, she was very disinterested in actually doing it. Seemed happy enough to watch me do it though so I’ll take that.

My nephew tried to talk to me about TikTok videos, of which I know next to nothing and I put a small but possibly noticeable dent in my brother’s Jack Daniels. We talked about my book and Adam went straight to the acknowledgements and got very upset that he wasn’t mentioned. I now owe him a book series about Vikings with the main character being based on him.

On the other end of the spectrum we have my other brother Jesse. Love him to death, I really do. Small reminder that he works for Adam and Ella (SIL) works there also and runs her own business out of it. So with that back story, he walks into the office and asks them very confused, “Did S.J. write a book? When did this happen?” They then had to explain to him that this has been something happening for a while and questioned which rock he had taken residence under.

He also forgot Adam’s birthday on Friday. So that was a thing. There comes a point when I feel like one of us should steal his phone and add all of the important family stuff to his phone for him.

While we’re on the topic of Jesse and because it’s the funniest story I have from this week (one of the downfalls of taking a month off from work. Matt’s funny and all but there’s something about a guy trying to return underwear that he’s tried on…you know…with nothing in between and then getting angry when he’s refused the refund for obvious reasons, that Matt just can’t compare to. I think they call it stupidity.)

Back to Jesse.

So he went to get breakfast from McDonalds the other morning and when he pulled up to the window to pay for his hash browns he was told that the lady before him had paid for his breakfast.

Now. This is a thing that most people who spend time on the internet are aware of. Commonly known as “paying it forward” is a thing that people do to just to be nice.

My brother did not like this. He spent all day agonising over who it was that paid for his breakfast. Did he know her? Were they waiting for him to message them saying thank you? Why did they do it? Who does that? These were thoughts going through his head all day. Claims he got no work done. How dare someone be nice to him and expect nothing in return.

So confusing.

So rude.

I’m not saying he Facebook stalked this person. He couldn’t. Because he had no idea who it was.

I am quite certain that this mystery person is still bothering him right this very moment. It amuses me greatly.

Dad, Adam, Ella, Dan and I spent a good hour throughout the night trying to convince him that this is a thing that people do. Fairly regularly. We even brought up videos on Youtube which prompted Jesse to decry these acts of paying it forward as mere publicity stunts.

He then went on to question why this mystery person didn’t leave a note or a message for him with his breakfast. For some reason he couldn’t understand why someone would do a nice thing just to do a nice thing. I even tried to use Phoebe from Friends as an example but he’s a special pleb and didn’t watch it as avidly as the rest of us (mum excluded because she just didn’t like them sleeping around).

For those of you who have, you know the episode where Phoebe tries to convince Joey that there is such thing as a selfless good deed. She goes around trying to do good things and not get recognition for it, but pretty much everything backfires. She even goes so far as to let a bee sting her so it can look cool to all of it’s bee friends….Yep pretty sure that was the first time Joey was the smart one.

This woman didn’t want a thank you. She didn’t want to be paid back by my brother or to even be recognised for it. She just wanted to do a good thing and maybe get some good karma in the future. What she wound up doing was confusing and upsetting a 27 year old.

Currently my greatest wish is to find this woman and buy her a drink. Why? Not because I want to do a good thing, I mean I do but this isn’t one of those things. I want to thank her for confusing the absolute shit out of my brother and giving our family dinner some wonderful entertainment that extended beyond sibling arguments that make my mum wish she hadn’t had kids.