Somebody get me an Advil

“I’ve got a problem!” This little red headed twit would say each and every time we met. She over used the word problem like, lol on texts, and she really, really, really, according to her, had a problem with whatever we were doing, that she would excruciatingly describe in detail until I wanted to cremate myself. How can one person be so problematic? Not once, not twice. Fuck. I always lost count and began to stop listening right after she said, “I’ve got a problem.” I wanted to say, “Look you little whiney brat, I’m just a volunteer trying to control a group of fifteen prepubescent girls, and the fourteen others that apparently do not have a problem require my attention and direction, too, so stop sucking up every molecule in the room,” but how could I? So instead, I pretended I cared about Miss All About Me, me and my clenched jaw posing as a patron saint, and the problem free girls existed only in her shadow. Seriously, she tested my patience to the point of wanting to push her off the cliff down the block from the church where we met each Wednesday afternoon at 4 o’clock, when she singlehandedly turned an hour and a half into life in prison. I was happy when she allegedly contracted walking pneumonia. Hell. That germ probably wanted to run like Nike’s after landing on her, but what did I care? It kept her absent for a week. Oh. I know I sound wicked, but you have no idea. Every time her mother came to pick her up, she thought my big smile was a sign I was a good person. Little did she know, it was the relief talking, “Oh. Thank God it’s over!” But then the next meeting would come, and she’d walk in and I’d twitch like jerky at the sight of her from across the room.

Me, the “not knowing what the hell I was doing” trying my best to “fake it until I make it” Girl Scout troop leader tried desperately to each week to do what? I’m not kidding. I can’t remember anything about the experience other than the stress induced by ginger Jennifer, in the basement of an Episcopal church that surely would have parishioners dizzy on a different day of the week, had they heard my thoughts. Blasphemy!

Whatever it was that made her look at life through a lense of quagmire, in spilling my guts about this, I can’t help but wonder if I wasn’t down the rabbit hole with her. Isn’t a problem only as important as we make it out to be? Of course there are exceptions. Like rain. Rain, and the lack of rain can both be seen as problems, depending upon if you are say a bride or the farmer. And well, cancer. Cancer. That’s a problem all of us would rather not be acquainted with. We can call rain and cancer problems, one more dire than the other, unless you are a bride or a farmer with cancer, only because the weather and illnesses are situations beyond our control. But I wasn’t a bride or a farmer and I was not diagnosed with an incurable illness, I was just confronted with a difficult pupil, not unlike the countless teachers and volunteers....ah like everywhere.

But Ging’ did me a favor. As much as I never wanted to see the likes of her again when I hung up my sash, her sheer ridiculousness towards the imperative continual importance of problems made my third eye see that more often than not, it is the mind; the perception of the situation that is the problem, not the problem itself. Why was it that fourteen other girls attended and went about whatever we were doing without complaint? And I'd be remiss if I didn't contemplate if the problem was just her or my lack of patience? If she was special needs, or special ed, trust me my compassion would have been all over that, (kuddos to special ed teachers everywhere) but she most definitely was not; she was just a whiney little brat with an intense need to make avalanches out of bunny slopes, with the ultimate intent of dominating the cosmos. If I was her mother I’d want a refund.

So thanks for listening to my rant about my problem about a girl who always had a problem. My take away today is, in a perfect world, there are no problems; just situations that need attention. But it’s not a perfect world and sometimes you just can’t make this shit up.