I loaded my Jeep to deliver the mail very early yesterday.

I’d finished casing the relatively small amount of mail we got in to deliver…marked all my packages…did all my paperwork…and was ready to go by 9:30.

That’s a good start to getting done with the day in the early hours of the afternoon.

When I was pulling out of the parking lot of the post office to drive to the beginning of the route, Jenny called me.

“Isaac broke down…I’m taking him to school. The truck is up by those trailers that are up the road from the Zirconia Post Office…in that parking area.”

I asked what happened….”What happened?”

“He said that it overheated…and then all the coolant blew out…there’s coolant everywhere.”

“OK….I’m on my way.”

That’s a long drive to the other Post Office. They give me credit for 7 miles…but when you’re worrying about the situation and how you’re going to fix it, the short ride turns long somehow.

When I got to the car, after doing some poking around I realized that a short radiator hose under the power steering pump had split the length of the hose. It really blew out.

After doing some more poking around, I realized that I couldn’t see the clamp on the end of the hose that was under the distributor and the power steering pump, and knowing that I’d be out in the dark and cold later in the day trying to figure out how to get the hose off when I couldn’t get that clamp off without pulling a bunch of stuff off…or trying to reach it from the bottom while lying on my back…I called a mechanic I like to use…and had the car towed over to his shop.

So…between identifying the problem, realizing that it was really awkward to fix…more awkward than any hose I’d ever replaced….then calling the mechanic…then calling the wrecker…then waiting on the wrecker to come…the whole thing ate up a chunk of my morning.

“Good shape” had miraculously transformed into “I think I can make it” in the bursting of a hose.

Of course, because Isaac didn’t have a car anymore, he needed a ride home from school.

Jenny would drive back in to town to get him…but the only thing that really made any sense was for me to get him at the end of my day.

That meant that I needed to do a route that takes me 5 hours to drive in 4 hours (or less) so that I’d be there when school let out.

D-A-N-G-I-T.

My day…my glorious early day…my record setting, wonderfully truncated, earlyearlyearly day was evaporating before my eyes.

Ease and comfort were a thing of the past…a distant memory.

I drove like a bat out of Hades. I ran all the packages up to the porches. I hurried. I ate my sandwich in 5 bites…my thick peanut butter sandwich. I threw my banana peel out the window with great panache…I didn’t stop.

And I did it…I drove the route faster than I normally do and I made it to the school only 5 or 10 minutes late.

I did it.

I did it…but my perfect early day was gone. It was “early” because it had to be…but it wasn’t perfect.

But then I thought about it for a bit….and realized that the only way a day like that would have worked, with all the “hose bursting” and “wrecker calling”, was if I’d gotten a really early and good start.

The only way it would have worked was if I had a phenomenal beginning and was optimistic about finishing really early because of it.

The only way for it all to have come together in the end…was if the day was exactly as it was.

Maybe it was a perfect day, after all.

Maybe it was my own personal blessed day?

What a great day to burst a little hidden hose!