Yesterday was one of those days which started off very badly… I had been planning to go to the office as usual because there were a lot of things that I needed to take care of.  But suddenly I was told my son was “performing” at school and my wife really wanted me to go… I said I was too busy then I left for the office.

But then I remembered an email someone had sent me recently about a professor and a jar - a great read and very thought-provoking - and it occurred to me that I’d better take care of the golf balls… so I called my office, made sure nothing important was waiting for me, and then told my wife I’d see her at school.

After wolfing down a double Filet-O-Fish and fries at McDonald’s, I hopped in a taxi to take me to the school.  Midway through the ride, the phone rang - it was one of my daughters calling to tell me that there were no more tickets - just wonderful, after I’d already made the change in plans - I talked with my wife and she said to go anyhow, as she was getting another ticket from a friend.

I arrived, got the ticket from my wife, and sat down… in the very back row.  Wonderful, I thought… picked up the program off the chair and started to read it - and couldn’t find my child’s name in the program.  “So what’s he supposed to do?” I thought to myself.

My wife got in just seconds before the performance was to start.  The play was “The Jungle Book” - I thought that would be entertaining and settled in to watch - but my wife handed me the video camera and wanted me to record the performance.

For the life of me, I could not get the video camera to work - something clearly needed fixing, so I ended up missing the first 5 minutes of the performance trying to get the video camera to do what I wanted… to no avail.

My boy had said that he’d been promoted from a bit part, so I had expected to see him with a speaking role - to my great surprise, his “new” role was to be the hind end of an elephant!  Definitely not a speaking part… by this time I was fuming at having wasted the greater part of a working day…

Nevertheless, the play was kind of entertaining… when it ended, I greeted my kids, then told them I was off to work because so many things needed doing.   They understood (my kids are pretty good at that) and I left thinking that I had wasted my time but at least I had taken care of the golf balls mentioned in the story about the professor and the jar.

I headed off for Starbucks, as it was really too late to go to the office so I thought I’d get a little online work done, do the shopping, then head home.

After settling down with a venti Mocha Frappuchino Light (with an extra shot), I got online, then called my colleague to get an update about a potential client.  The news was not what I had expected, and there was other news that I wasn’t too happy about - but I took it in stride and thought that I should’ve expected that news anyhow.  I shot off a couple of emails and then packed up my computer.

I did my shopping and then hopped in a taxi to go home - thinking about what I needed to do when I got home.  But when I hopped out of the taxi, I noticed something very unusual - the license plate had the number 8888 on it - I laughed and thought perhaps there was some lucky significance to that, as 8 is a lucky number in Asia.

I got upstairs, went online and unexpectedly found replies to the emails from two very busy people - and the responses were very promising, in fact the first good news I’d had all day.  It got me thinking - perhaps the story about the golf balls was right.  Take care of the golf balls and everything else is just sand.

In summary - the golf balls are your priorities - take care of them.  Take the news that your son is a hind end in stride.  And check the license plates of the taxis you ride in!