Attitudes are contagious...

I got home last night and rather than greeting me at the door like he always does, Eliot was standing on the steps that lead to the basement… I couldn’t figure it out I just assumed he was hungry- because he is a huge fatty – so I went to feed him.

About 10 minutes later he was still in the basement. I went down and he was staring intently at the floor.. I just assumed a bug I couldn’t see.. so I went upstairs.

Two hours later he is STILL down there staring and what do you know? It’s almost like he was a detective cat! There was a leak in the hot water heater. Eliot reminds me of a little old man with OCD. He gets terrible anxiety if things are out of order and he also likes to follow the rules- which is why he is not so fond of Estella, the bratty bad girls club cat. Anyway- it's no surprise he was so caught up in this leak...

Anyway- the moment I noticed there was a problem, did my googling about water heater leaking, and called a plumber, Eliot was able to relax.

But the point of this post is not to talk about my cat’s anxiety. It’s mostly to talk about attitude.

In our sorority house, my friend Lindsey once posted a sign in our bathroom that said “Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?” It still rings true. And last night as I discovered I was about to shell out well over $1,000 for water heater repair, I realized in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t that big of a deal. I thought about how others may get pissed, and post something about how crappy it was on their facebook page, or just bitch about it constantly for the rest of the week. But why bother? It’s a water heater. It’s going to have to be replaced at some point. At least Eliot caught the issue in time and my floor won’t be ruined. Plus watching a cat so concerned over a water heater is pretty funny.

Basically you get two choices in how you can react to something like this.. you can get pissed and throw a fit, or you can deal with it and go back upstairs finish watching Top Chef and move on. Not saying that you can’t have your moments of being irritated.. but eventually you have to let it go. Because your attitude is contagious…

One of my favorite stories about having a good attitude comes from my mom (who when told about the leak says to me, “Oh that’s too bad. Do you want to hear a funny story?” And totally changes the subject. Classic Dtaylo.)

Anyone who knows Dtaylo knows she LOVES to gamble. A few years ago we were in Las Vegas for my birthday visiting Julia and Tim. We had gone to lunch at Mesa Grill (my all time favorite place) and mom realizes she’s lost her wallet. The wallet contains not only her money, credit cards, ID – but MY credit cards, ID as well… so she says “OH NO! I must have left it at the King of Cash slot machine!” So she takes off to go find the wallet. Julia and I pay for lunch and head off to find Dtaylo- we assume she’s at Lost and Found.

Nope. There’s Dtaylo at King of Cash again.

Kacee: “Mom, did you find your wallet?”
Mom: “Oh, I haven’t gone to look yet.”

Dtaylo had found a hot machine and she wasn’t giving it up for anything. She did find her wallet and thankfully only the cash was gone… but this story makes me laugh because that’s my mom’s attitude. She could’ve freaked out. She could’ve ruined the day by having a terrible attitude about the whole ordeal but instead she chose to assume that by that point if the wallet was stolen, it was stolen…

So she might as well make the most of the situation and try to go for the bonus.