The beginning of the process

Today I've had an unexpected opportunity to exercise forgiveness as "the decision not to hold onto the hurt."  Last night as I was putting leftovers away, I noticed we had too much parmesan white sauce left over for the amount of spinach ravioli that was left, so I decided I'd serve a little of it over some eggs for breakfast this morning.  When we got up, I was getting ready to cook when Teri informed me that we only had one egg left.  As I was walking out to the door to pick up a dozen, along with some milk and bread, I was surprised to look down and see egg yolk splattered on my front porch.

I took some time to survey the damage: one on my wife's car, at least two on mine, at least two on the porch.  I think we probably took a half dozen in all.  It didn't occur to me to look up; those two on the porch had landed there after having broken against the gable over the front porch.  I went back inside to gather cleaning supplies; the one thing I knew was that cleanup was only going to be more difficult if I waited.  While we've had a bit of a warm spell this week, a first taste of spring, it was still around freezing this morning, so I made sure to use warm water from inside to mix the cleaning solution rather than cold hose water, just for my own comfort level.  After scrubbing the egg residue off the porch and the cars, I finally thought of how lucky I'd been that they didn't get the gable, which prompted me to look up at last.  Sigh.  I thought I'd be finally buying the extension ladder I've been eying.  I hosed the gable, just to presoak it a bit, before belatedly departing for the grocery store.  I hosed it again after getting back, realizing that there was no amount of hosing that was going to do the trick.  But after eating our delayed and delicious breakfast, I remembered that I had an extension pole that would allow me to reach the soiled gable with my feet still planted on terra firma.  Looking around for 10 seconds, I spotted a brush that had two threaded holes for mounting on just such a pole.  After about 5 minutes of over-my-head scrubbing, I had the last of the stubborn residue removed.

The whole time I was working, I was thinking how glad I was that it wasn't the heat of the summer, when the mess would have dried a lot more thoroughly.  Yes, it was a cold morning, but not bitterly so, and was going to warm up today rather than freeze.  Had the same incident happened when I was out of town, it would've been a lot worse for Teri to deal with, or worse, would've been more permanent damage by the time I got home to clean things up.

So yes, whoever did this was not very nice, but all things considered, I think their not-niceness probably has a bigger impact on their lives than it did on mine.