By Jodi Rae Ingstad 

That mother of mine put me into speech class quite young.  As a pre-teen I began in our local 4-H club learning public speaking usually during some sort of demonstration I was giving. In high school and college speech class they used terms like, impromptu and persuasive speaking.  The teachers taught us that a very great way to capture an audience’s attention was to begin any speech with a question.  So I begin this column with,” If you had the opportunity to know exactly everything that would transpire during a day, would you want to know or would you rather just wing it and let the cards fall where they may?”
In Jodi’s perfect world I wake up happy every single day and whoever I should meet would be filled with the kind of goodness that makes angels fly.  Every event is pre-planned and perfect.  If one question at the beginning of a speech is good than two must be better so,” How come Jodi’s perfect world never seems to work out the way Jodi perfectly plans it?”
It all began as the precisely proper and perfect morning I had proposed it to be.  The coffee was pristine in its richness.  The new water heater that husband of mine gifted me flowed out some bone healing hot water, perfectly.  I wallowed in the tub while drinking my coffee with not a dark cloud visible to halt my day in any way.   I got out of the tub with wet hair and no makeup on.   I tied just my fuzzy, light blue robe around my waist and stepped into Husband’s size 12 shoes sitting by the front door.  I wear his shoes for just those quick trips out the front door to put the dogs out.   I was a real looker at that hour of the cool morning.    I shut the door behind me and just as I did I heard my cell phone ringing inside.  I had the Siberian husky dog on a leash.  He was anxious to run.  He was pulling my right arm as I tried to open the door with my left to answer the phone.  It was then I realized the door had locked behind me.   I have a spare house key that I keep in my car so with wet hair, no makeup, size 12 shoes for my size 6 feet and a Siberian husky in tow, I shuffled to the car for the key.   Of course I couldn’t get into the car because it too was locked and the key for the car was somewhere buried in my purse that was inside the house that was now very locked behind me.  I purposefully made that a run -on sentence.  In speech we learn that run-on sentences can be very effective in making a dramatic point.   Our cabin has old windows.  In lieu of buying new ones we creatively used a staple gun to put screens over the windows that were missing them.  Realizing this was my only option I stood on an antique children’s chair I keep on our deck in order to hoist myself up.  As I did the chair broke.  By this point I used my anger to pull myself through the opening of the window.  Picture that.   I was hanging half way in and half way out of a small window.  My legs were in the air and my head was covered with my robe which had fallen over my face as it hung dangling on the inside of the house. I was trying not to break my neck as I catapulted myself through the window as Husband’s size 12 shoes balanced on my feet.
I end in answering my own question.  I would not want to know how a day would play out.  For if I knew everything, I’d forget to pre-plan for the laughter the unexpected offers so perfectly.