Life is always throwing lemons at us. It’s an almost daily challenge to navigate our way through this citrus minefield, all the while clinging desperately to the aged pearl of wisdom, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

I have developed a new recipe for Life Lemonade that seems to work pretty good for me. When I find myself tripping over another lemon, I pull out my camera and document the pesky little irritant. I square my shoulders and stare directly at the damned lemon declaring triumphantly, “I’ll make a blog post out of you!”

With a smug satisfaction I deftly step past the latest lemon.

Most of these photos and their stories never make it into blog posts. In retrospect the incident doesn’t seem so important or interesting and the retelling feels more like whining.  I’ll show you what I mean:

FRENCH FRY PEPPER

Recliner Man and I had lunch at a local Village Inn. We waited several minutes for anyone in the nearly empty restaurant to notice we were there. We waited several more minutes in our booth for a waitress to notice we were in her section. He ordered some sort of breakfast involving eggs, ham, bacon and pancakes. I ordered a turkey club with fries. We waited and waited for the food to arrive, while we looked at our empty glasses and wondered if we would die of dehydration before our food arrived. (It was just that kind of day.)

The turkey was as dry as cardboard but it was the fries that did me in. They were covered in pepper.Who puts pepper on their fries? (Billie, put your hand down… I already know that you put pepper on everything.) I tried waiting for our server to return but the minutes were ticking by, my food was getting cold, and we were on a schedule and running out of time. I ended up using my knife to scrap the pepper off each of the fries. And, I took a photo. “This will make a great blog post!”

TARGET SECURITY

While Christmas Shopping for Recliner Man I purchased this nifty digital photo frame for him. For three years he has been dropping hints about how cool he thinks they are. I finally decided I’d ignored him long enough to make him think I would never buy one. The timing was perfect to pull off a Christmas morning surprise big enough to rival Ralphie’s Red Ryder BB gun.

I waited in a line of holiday shoppers at the checkstand.  I cheerfully greeted the cashier and paid for my purchase. I was filled with glee. I was heading home satisfied that my shopping experience was finally complete and all that stood between me and the excitement of Christmas gift giving was a few rolls of wrapping paper and tape. And then it happened. A giant lemon appeared out of nowhere and hit me square in the forhead.

“You will have to take this to the Courtesy Desk to have the security device removed.” The Courtesy Desk? The same Courtesy Desk with its own line of waiting customers and a slow motion clerk? Plunk, plunk.. a couple more lemons dropped on my head just for good measure. Time to take a photo.

My turn finally arrived and I placed the box with its clearly visible security device and receipt on the counter.  Before I could open my mouth to talk, Mr. Slow Motion grabbed the box and started hitting keys on his register asking, “Did you just want a refund for this?” (Hello! Security Device!)

I told the young man that I wanted the device removed so I could take the box out of the store.  This is where it actually gets a little interesting. He removed the device without looking at the receipt. In theory, I could have purchased Tic-Tacs and used the reciept to get this box out of the store without paying for it. Or I could have exited and returned with my reciept to take a second digital photo frame home. Wow, Target Security at its best.

Lemons, we all encounter them. How do you deal with your lemons?