it could be worse

Isn’t there some clever proverb that says something like, “it could be worse”, but in a much more eloquent way? It almost seems like a false optimism to always be saying that regardless of how bad it seems, it could be worse. I can almost hear Marilyn, Dr. Fleischman’s receptionist, responding quietly to his complaining with this remark.
But honestly, if you seriously examine the situation when challenges strike, you can often see what you’ve been spared. This has been especially evident to me in my rickety vehicular life lately. You’ll remember that back in January we lost a transmission only 3 hours from home, at the end of 19 hour drive from Austin. We had driven through hours of nowhere, nothing but fields, no exits, no cell towers, no nothing. We could have broken down in Mississippi and been 10 hours from both ends of the trip and no way to get help.
You’ll also remember that on my birthday, Jack and I drove up to see Switchfoot in Allison’s truck because I didn’t trust mine to make the trip. Of course her truck broke down and cost us a long night and morning trying to get moving again. As it turned out, the part I needed was easy to find and I was able to repair the truck with a single cheap wrench and a sore thumb. Though, I was grateful that it was fairly simple, and that it had happened to me rather than Allison, I couldn’t help but thinking I’d wished we’d have taken my truck instead.
Well yesterday I realized why we didn’t take my truck. 12 days, and fewer miles than the trip to Clemson later, my truck broke down on the way to work. This time, it wasn’t a single wrench and sore thumb job. My water pump all but exploded, spraying down the engine and sending billowing antifreeze smoke all over. Now this was on my way back to work for he first time all week because I’ve been down with the flu, and this is the thanks I get for making the effort? It was also pouring rain and downright ugly outside and I’m sitting beside the interstate with smoke billowing and an engine light flashing. When I peered under the hood to attempt a diagnosis, I remembered that when I couldn’t find the right part in Anderson to fix her truck, I’d considered asking Allison to take it off my truck and bum a ride to bring it to me. That memory struck me then because when I looked under the hood, I noticed that the tensioner and idler pulleys on my truck were in opposite places than they were on her truck. I would have explained to her, by location, which one to bring, and she’d have come 100 miles to bring me the wrong pulley.
So the moral of these stories is that next time you hear me say, “it could be worse,” rest assured that I know what I’m talking about. As a matter of fact, I probably won’t say that at all. From experience, I’ll probably know exactly what that worse thing would be, and I’ll just say it, specifically. It could be worse, it could be my motorcycle.