Storms n' Smiles

"Umm, Houston? We have a problem."

Fact: Awe-inspiring adventures can turn into storms in a hurry.

Here’s what happened:

With one of our sons in Japan on a student exchange trip, Jenn, me and our youngest (he’s almost 16) decided to take a work trip and turn it into a brief vacation. I spoke to a men’s event in San Antonio, TX, then we were off to Houston to visit my sister, her hubs and also hang with one of her four children.

Side note: Summer in Houston is hotter than Nashville. Houston may be cooler than the planet Mercury, but no one knows. It’s a close call.

Anyway, a highlight was our day trip to Houston’s Johnson Space Flight Center. We had a blast (off). Pun intended.

We added a tour of Mission Control to our visit, which was beyond amazing. To spend a few minutes in the room where flight engineers led Apollo 11’s landing on the Moon, and where many of those same rocket scientists created the miracle which led Apollo 13 back to Earth—awe inspiring.

But . . .

Our trip from the exhibit building to Mission Control involved a tram, which meant we were outdoors, with only a roof on our little ride back and forth. No biggie, right? We were hot, but the ride was only a mile or so. We got this.

Once inside Mission control, we trekked up 87 stairs to get into the viewing room. We dignitaries—including Queen Elizabeth—once watched Apollo flights. Cool.

After about 30 minutes in Mission Control, time to head back to the gift shop and more exhibits. As we boarded the next to last row of the tram, a cloud showed up. A big cloud. Jenn—God bless her—ended up on the outside seat. Full disclosure: I offered to switch with her but she said she was fine.

We figured we’d beat the rain, right?

Wrong.

A couple of minutes into our ride back, the skies opened and poured forth. And I mean, poured. The last time I saw this kind of rain, I was living in the big city of Opelika, Alabama. It was called, “Hurricane Opal.”

The Houston monsoon came in sideways, and Jenn could not move as the water poured off the tram’s roof and into her lap.

All she could do was sit and take it. All of us got soaked. But Jenn, my word. Honestly, she could’ve jumped in a pool and not been as wet.

Houston, we had a problem.

Jenn tried to dry off in the restroom. No luck. Wringing out her dress was useless. We slogged into the gift shop, and before we realized what was going on, an employee was following her with a mop. I kid you not.

When Jenn saw she had a gift shop escort, Jenn exited and tried the restroom again, doing all she could to take seven gallons of H20 out of her dress. Trying to enter the gift shop a second time, we saw NASA had set up a guard at the entrance, looking out for soaked patrons.

The Newly-Minted Gift Shop Sentry then told Jenn, “I heard we just had a woman in here who was dripping so much, they had to get out a mop.” We shook our heads, wondering who that could’ve been.

Quickly, we spent $995.99 on three sweatshirts and a coffee mug, escaping without further incident.

The road not taken

Friends, Mission Control will be a family war story for years to come.

But here’s the thing: Any objective observer would say Jenn, of all 75 humans on that tram, was hardest hit. No question, no doubt. Her shoes were a disaster, unsalvageable. She had to sit—soaked—in a car for an hour during our drive to my sister’s home.

Jenn could have chosen emotions such as anger, frustration, even desperation. Yet she chose laughter. I have the photo. You saw it up top.

Life tosses us storms all the time. Some, of course, are terribly serious and laughter is not an option. Yet even in these, we have choices about how we will respond.

But many of our “storms” are hardly major life issues. They are about flat tires (already wrote about that one), other inconveniences, and those times when we must throw carefully laid plans out the window.

Maybe moments like these are good for us. Because if we learn to laugh at the little stuff, perhaps we can find joy even when the big stuff happens.

I wouldn’t wish that crazy storm on my beautiful wife ever again. But I wouldn’t trade that moment, either. Because, once again, I got to see joy in my wife—even when circumstances got messy.

I learned a lesson, too. The next time I go to Johnson Space Flight Center with Jenn, I’ll bring my own mop.