Ask Nell
I was recently shocked to find a group of‘emploment-ly-challenged’ individuals (I’mabstaining from using four-letter-words) broke into myboyfriend’s house and performed a grab-no-go covertoperation. A playstation, DVD’s, video games, and my pursewhere among the prizes. Stolen wallet? Figures. Emptied checkingaccount? Okay. Looking outside and realizing your car is stolen?Priceless.
There’s something about a time of crisis that bringshearts (and sometimes loins) together. When you’re in themiddle of a nightmare of a crisis, you find it hard to imagine thatyou’ll wake up with a happy ending. In extreme ‘Dude,where’s my car?’ moments, it was interesting to notehow differently the two members in a couple react. After mourningthe untimely loss of his Playstation, my boyfriend took it onhimself to calmly assess the situation and think logically. I justcalled 911 and spouted out more expletives then an HBO realityspecial. It’s few times in life that you hear a policeofficer say, “M’am, will you please calm down or justwait outside. You’re driving me nuts.” It is here thatI learned my first important lesson:
Crisis Tip Number 1: Stop, drop, and roll.
In short, take a second to assess the situation, shake off theinitial shock, and think clearly. Put all emotions aside and think,”What would Oprah do?” This applies to any stressfulsituation, like finding out your girlfriend is running off with theguy she met on the Internet, or waking up next to a guy wearing afireman’s hat and no pants.
The bewilderment of wondering where a stolen car is is only beatin intensity by getting ‘the call’: “Um, we foundyour car in North Dallas.”
” How is it?”
“Depends. Did you run into a telephone pole before the carwas stolen?”
A good piece of advice: don’t leave $6,500 of CD’s,clothes, and stereo equipment in your car. My boyfriend offered methese words of advice, “Things will get better.” Right,I thought. Will all of my [stuff] magically appear? Here is where Ilearned my next lesson:
Crisis Tip Number 2: Cut your losses and find somethinghumorous in the situation.
While my boyfriend slowly taught me that stuff is just stuffthat can be replaced, I was still waiting to somehow be amused.But, every dark cloud has a silver lining. When I finally went tosee my poor car at the Dallas Police Impound, I found only onething left in the car, a CD in the CD player. And wouldn’tyou know, as I turned the ignition on, Nelly’s “PimpJuice” blasted out. I still have an image in my mind of abunch of people joyriding in my car, looking through my clothes andCD’s, listening to “Pimp Juice” and smoking theirCuban cigars (which they conveniently put out on the dashboard). Ihad found my situational humor, and now have a moment in honor ofthe yetis that stole my car every time I hear “Pimp Juice!Wooooo!” I suggest you do the same.
There’s not always a “happily ever after’ending after a crisis, but in the case of my nightmare, gettingeverything stolen turned out not to be so bad. It was with time andpatience that I learned my most important lesson.
Crisis Tip Number 3: J.Lo’s ‘My Love Don’tCost a Thing’ isn’t always true.
Sometimes the price of love is high. Some couples have to gothrough a lot of pain and anguish before they realize how much theymean to each other. And sometimes they have to make even biggersacrifices just to be together. In my case, love did cost a thing,many things in fact. And that adds a whole new meaning to the word”priceless”.
