Bad Days and Cute Solutions

I had a horrible day last Friday. Not for any especially terrible reason, things just didn't go right from the moment I got up. As a very non-confrontational person, the idea of disagreeing with someone makes me uneasy. The idea of disagreeing with multiple people in front of a shop full of people? To be honest, I'd never really thought about it until there I was on Friday, my hands in the air and my voice quivering as I held back tears.

There's nothing quite like being faced with "customer service" that lies to your face and blames you for their mistake. There's definitely nothing like a so-called manager telling you "Well you should have used common sense," especially when she's advising against the direct instructions that her store supervisor had been given not 5 minutes earlier. And there is nothing worse than the tightening feeling in your chest, the wobbling of your bottom lip, the uncontrollable shaking of your hands, the infuriating welling in your eyes and the desperate inability to breathe.

So I had a panic attack.

In the middle of a packed store, with 4 unsympathetic "customer service officers" looking on with disapproving frowns and raised eyebrows. With customers who had no idea what was going on except that there was a girl in line who could barely stand up, could barely breath, and no doubt looked a little unhinged.

And you know what they made me do, tears still in my eyes, hands still shaking? They made me fill out a form. A form for a cash refund to rectify their mistake. A form for cash I had handed over 10 minutes earlier.

No explanation. No apology. Just a form, and my cash shoved back at me across the counter.

Needless to say, I was a little flustered by the time I got home. As soon as my front door latch clicked closed, I burst into tears all over again.

Then I got my breath back, wiped away the tears, put the kettle on and let the powers of Google cheer me up. First by searching for baby hedgehogs. Then for French bulldog puppies. And then spent an hour trawling through Cute Overload and FU Penguin.

And it worked. An hour (or two) later, I felt better. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that I felt great. So I've decided, through 2 hours of extremely vigorous scientific research, that baby hedgehogs are the solution to just about everything, and when they don't work (which is extremely rare, of course) then there are other cute animals that might just help out too.

The moral of the story:

HEDGEHOGS = THE SOLUTION!

If only it didn't take a very public, very embarrassing panic attack to help me stumble upon my groundbreaking hypothesis. The things I'll do for science!

So tell me, what cheers you up when nothing else will?


xx Kit