Where is the lid?

I work in a small bookstore with a bunch of really awesome colleagues. Just thought I'd get that out of the way before I launched into a story.

So! A few days ago, we got a shipment of new candles in. (Candles?? In a bookstore???? Yeah, we're that awesome.) While my manager and another employee set up prices for them, I found little nooks for them in our already over-stocked shelf. As I did, one little lonely candle caught my eye. A lidless candle, to be precise. I pointed it out to my manager and he shrugged.

"I know," he said. "I can't find the lid anywhere. We'll just have to leave it on the shelf for now."

So I put it back. The day moved on. Candles were unboxed and stickered and moved and stacked. And in the flurry of rapid movements and bumping elbows, one poor candle met its Mount Doom demise as it tumbled from Kate's hands. Except the bottom of Mount Doom in this case wasn't soft, gushy lava, it was rock hard carpet. (You know, that kind that should be labeled as carpet-colored tile rather than actual carpet.)

Now, an interesting fact about carpet-colored tile is that it gives a jarring impact you wouldn't expect, and it serves as a slick surface even better than real tile (at least in the case of shattering glass). We had glass pieces everywhere. They completely covered the front of the store, not just the little corner next to the registers where the candle actually fell. Not only do we still need to transport candles through this mine field, but we have customers passing in and out of the front of the store all the time.

Kate groaned and ran to the back for the vacuum. I, on the other hand, stood there doing a perfect impersonation of a speechless moron with candles in each hand while I wondered if even Superman's vacuuming skills would be fast enough to clear a path to the registers before the next customer needed to check out.

And my manager, my crazy awesome manager, pursed his lips, surveyed the damage, and then scooped up the demolished candle's somehow-intact lid.

"Look," he said, smiling. "Now we have an extra lid for that other candle."

Ahh, it made me laugh. Isn't that such a wonderful view? Even more so if you take it with a bit of a broader perspective.

When things go wrong in life, and we're left staring at this mess that looks hopeless to clean up before the next event hits us, I hope we can find the little lessons and be able to say, "Oh, look. Now I have an answer for that other problem." And if you can't find the problem that lesson will fit, hang on to it, because it'll be unboxed in the future for sure.
~ Lizzy
Current word count today: 57
Current song: Fiction by Beast
Current quote: "Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future." ~ Dale Turner