Maggie Moments

by Jeanette Levellie

My husband met me at the door, his eyebrows in V-formation, always a sign of worry. “Why were you gone so long, hon?” he asks. “You just went to mail one package.”

 I threw my purse and myself onto the couch, grabbing a cat for comfort. “I had a Maggie moment,” I sighed.  He shook his head and grinned.  A look of relaxed understanding took the place of the V-formation. 

Maggie, bless her darlin’ heart and ditzy head, is a crisis magnet. She’s the one person in our family we can rely on to add drama to our lives. Every errand turns into a screenplay for a feature film. Take a simple trip to the market for a bag of noodles.

“I think it was that checker’s first day on the job,” Maggie moans, dumping her sack of groceries on the kitchen counter. “She didn’t know where the noodles were, and had to call the manager. He showed me the right aisle, but they were out of whole-wheat noodles. So I decided to run up to the Pine Street Market—that took forever since I got behind a funeral—and then I discovered they’d gone out of business. I had to go back to the first market and buy flour and eggs to make our own noodles.  It’ll only take three hours. You don’t mind having dinner a little late tonight, do you?”

We’ve tried to analyze why Maggie thrives on trouble above her fellows. We can go to the post office, market, or bank and run into glitches that annoy us to Mars and back. Yet, we only get a tenth of the emotional surge from our episodes as Maggie does.  We still haven’t discovered why her predicaments are superior to ours. We may never. 

Oh, I see by your knowing smile that you have a Maggie in your family, too. I also see that same look of confusion on your face that we get every time a Maggie moment happens. It sure helps to know we’re not alone. 

Although the solution to dealing with Maggies is not easy, it is simple. To paraphrase my friend Jesus, whose family was filled with Maggies, “You just gotta love ‘em.”

“Nutty with a dash of meat” best describes Jeanette Levellie’s speaking, writing and life. She has published hundreds of humor/inspirational columns, articles, greeting cards, and poems. A spunky pastor’s wife, Jeanette is the mother of two, grandmother of three, and waitress to four cats. Her debut humor/inspirational book, Mirth and Worth in the Real Lane, releases in April of 2012. Find her mirthful musings at www.jeanettelevellie.com