In Spite Of Myself

Every once in a while I can somehow get over myself. What do I mean? It means there are times I can do the right thing even when I don't want to.

This is one of those times. It's Chol HoMoed Sukkos here (and also 104 degrees, thank you!) and my husband is taking the kids to a Chai LifeLine sponsored amusement park. My daughter had invited a friend yesterday, and we thought everything was set, although we hadn't talked to the parents and they didn't return our calls.

This morning, just hours before they were ready to go, we still hadn't heard from the parents of this sweet girl, and we told our daughter to invite another friend. Which she did. Then guess who called back?

That's right, the parents of the first sweet girl. Oh my gosh, it was like the end of the world. The mother reproached me for uninviting her daughter, and I countered with why didn't' you call back? Nothing was settled, other than her daughter was a hysterical wreak.

When I asked my husband about it, he was adamant. The parents hadn't responded to repeated attempts to contact them, although he may have had a wrong number. Right then, I felt the world spinning around me.

While I don't really like the mother of this little girl, it's not right to punish her. Especially if my husband had the wrong phone number. So I scrapped together the $30 it costs to buy a ticket at the door (as opposed to $5 if purchased beforehand) and had my son call the mother telling her we had an extra ticket.

Truth was, I was hoping we had an extra ticket, but when said son came home with his friend, I realized that we would have to buy another ticket.

I say HAVE TO because I wasn't about to let this little girl suffer for what was truly blunders all around. Smelling a rat, her mother called to confirm that there actually was another ticket, and I protested that indeed there was.

Looking back on something that happened barely an hour ago, I realize that in spite of myself, I did the right thing. In fact, $30 is a bargain to pay for the happiness this child will feel at the end of the day and the relief I feel at having been its cause.