Those who know me would agree that I am cool, calm, and collected, although not in that order. It takes quite a bit to razzle me and get me out of sync with my inner harmony. No matter what happens, I can always find something to amuse me and to laugh it off. I am just that kind of guy.

I must confess that, while that is mostly true, I did have an incident this past week that threw all of that out of the window. That is what I get for leaving my window down!

The week started out as normal. Mondays are usually my down day. After a full weekend of preparation and ministry, I need one day to really chill out and get my wits about me re-collected. On Mondays, I do not wish to do anything or see anybody or go anywhere. My motto for Monday is simply, just don’t call me!

I have one rule for Monday and that is it is impossible to oversleep. Whenever I wake up on Monday is when I get up. If ever the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage set the alarm clock for Monday morning, she will have to deal with a grouchy old geezer with an unpleasant attitude. I am sorry, that is the way life is.

On this particular Monday when I finally awakened, the first thing I noticed was that my wife had already left the house. Out in the kitchen the coffee had been brewed and waiting for my consumption. There was a nice bowl of oatmeal ready just for me.

Life cannot get any better than that! I only wish there were more Mondays in the week. I think when the Beatles sang that song, “Eight Days a Week,” they were referring to two Mondays.

I fixed my coffee, got my oatmeal ready and proceeded into the living room where I could set in my easy chair and watch a little bit of television for as long as I could stay awake. Nothing is quite as nice as a Monday with nothing to do and nobody to bother you while you are doing it.

I got situated and took a nice sip of delicious coffee and then proceeded to turn on the television. That is when my Monday exploded.

I could not turn the TV on; something was wrong with the service. Usually at times like this, my wife takes care of the situation and resolves the problem. Here I was all on my own and I needed to step up and take care of business.

I distinctly remember one occasion when my wife had to face such a situation and she would call the TV service. She would speak to some people there and in a few moments (after some rather angry screeching), the problem was solved. So I decided to do the same thing, minus the screeching.

When was the last time you called a tech person to help you solve a problem with your TV and Internet service? Therefore, you know what I am about to get into. It is something worse than Rod Sterling’s The Twilight Zone.

I called the number associated with our TV and Internet service and that is when the games began.

One of my problems is that I can remember “the day” when you talked to a live person. Someone actually living and breathing and living in your own country. How was I to know that the service technicians were somewhere in the hills of India?

After punching 2,743 numbers on my phone, I finally got somebody. Actually, it was not really somebody; it was a recording telling me that I was 47^thin line waiting for the technician. According to my calculation, it would take me 29 Mondays to get to talk to a live, breathing technician.

By the time I was connected to a live technician, I had completely lost my cool and was close to not being collected.

One of the problems I faced was trying to explain to this technician what my problem was. The next problem was to understand what he was saying to me. I believe if you are going to service American people, you need to speak good old fashion American without some accent that makes you sound like you are from Mars.

Each minute on the phone with this technician caused me to lose more of my cool until I was absolutely hot under the collar. He knew almost as much about my problem as some stray cat in the backyard.

Finally, I had enough and thought the best part of valor on my part would it be to bid him adios before I said some things that I would later regret.

After I hung up and cooled down a little bit I thought of something. Why don’t I just unplug the whole mess and then restart everything. It worked and I did not have to say it with some strange accent.

In my devotions that morning, I read from Psalms 33:4where David says, “For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth.”

Sometimes the best course of action is to do it yourself. Not being a do-it-yourself guru, it does not come naturally to me.

If you blame someone else for your problems, you are pointing the finger in the wrong direction.