Somebody somewhere was determined to make this just another lousy Monday, but I tried hard not to let them. On the phone first thing this morning (well, 8:30 am), I kept my head while others were losing theirs. For once, I was the one telling the Boss not to panic about whatever crisis he had concocted to start the week with.

How small a crisis was it? I can’t even remember it now, that’s how small it was. Crises, at least the crises generated by people who thrive on them like the Boss, come and go, like politicians. There’s no use getting excited about a crooked (or, just for the sake of argument, incompetent) politician getting into power, because he won’t be around long enough to destroy the system, and then someone else — someone either more or less crooked (or incompetent) — will come along to take his (or her) place.

And that’s the way it is when you’re in crisis mode all the time. Someone just has to dial it down a notch, and today was my day to do that. Sometimes, believe it or not, it’s the other way around. Sometimes I get into a panicky mode and think the world is coming to an end, and it’s the Boss who tells me to chill.

I’d say it was a healthy symbiotic relationship, except for the fact that it can’t be all that healthy to base a relationship around talking each other down off a ledge. Even if it’s successful most of the time, you only have to fail once. And then where are you? And in how many pieces?

There was so much going on today, and all at once to boot, that I could have let it get me down if I’d been in that frame of mind. Lucky for me (and anyone who came into contact with me), I wasn’t. By the end of the day, the Boss and I were laughing together (long distance, of course) about the ex-employee who got drunk and called the police to come to the Kennel as a practical joke. Not very practical, and not much of a joke, but it was a good sign we were laughing about it, Monday or not.