A last minute decision left precious few moments to pack and jump on a flight. A drastic lack of sleep caused less than perfect choices as I tossed my wardrobe into a carry on and rushed to the airport.

The up side was that that I was getting to 1) surprise my hubby and meet up with him for his birthday (granted this was probably more fun for me than him, but still! I loved it!) and 2) going to a formal cocktail attire event with said hubby who is always handsome but in french cuffs? WOW! So sexy I can’t even stand it!

Okay… Having only a few minutes (hours) to get ready I pulled my belongings from my suitcase to discover an awkward situation… the LBD I grabbed, mixed with the stilettos I brought equalled too much skin. For me anyway. While I’m debating what to do, I look down at my hands and realize it looks like I’ve been hard at work doing manual labor for oh – the last 80 years or so.

Horrible chipped manicure – and (this was a shock!) no nail salon in sight. (Seriously – I thought those were on every corner ever made – I thought it was a law or something!). What to do?!?

My memory reaches back to a friend telling me about her solution. She no longer gets manicures and instead does the glue on nail thing. With a drug store across from the hotel I realize this is the PERFECT solution to my wretched crisis. I can grab black stockings and nails. Cha-ching!

Carefully selecting the brand she had suggested I remembered that she also said the glue wasn’t great and that you had to use a lot of it. So I grabbed stronger glue (uhhh yah… crazy strong…) because nothing ruins a nice fancy dinner like a discarded entire fingernail in the cordon blu! Packages in hand I rush back to the hotel to shower.

Confession: I am a chronic multi-tasker. I am trying very hard to break this habit – but especially under stress? I’m spinning like ZZ Top. (hehehe – I thought that was funny! nvm) I simultaneously jumped out of the shower and in the small hotel bathroom proceed to put glue into tiny fake fingernails (which actually look kinda gross) – but I press on. I squeeze the tiny tube much to hard and a giant gob of glue fills the nail and begins to overflow onto the counter… So I grab a nearby tissue and use it to soak up the flood of glue – Toss said napkin into trash and plop down on the toilet to better access my work bench (ie sink counter top).

Nails in place and I’m pretty proud of myself. They actually look rather nice!

Not bad for 10 minutes and about $6!

Okay – next – the battle of the panty hose! I jump up or to be precise my mind says jump up but my body comes to a screeching halt. After a quick evaluation of a strange searing pain I realize that rather than the tissue falling into the trash it instead landed on the toilet seat. The seat I immediately sat down on.

I thought it was mostly an urban legend… that you couldn’t really glue a butt to a toilet seat… but I’m living proof you can.

I’m trapped! What do I do first?! Call housekeeping? Paramedics? SWAT? Plumber? Oh wait! None of the above!

The rule of awkward emergencies is always:
first you take a selfie!

Alas, I’m naked. And stuck to a toilet seat! Therefore, no selfie. (Take that those of you who thought I had no limits! ha!)… Also I couldn’t reach my phone so…

I could however reach a tiny metal nail file I had in my makeup kit on the counter. So feeling a LOT like MacGyver I proceed to detach myself from said seat.

Result? An itchy, scabby blotch on my left check. Nice.

Ahhhh. I didn’t tell Marcus for about a week. (Y’all I realize that you know he is an incredible and awesome and very brave man. Now add all that to the fact that he agrees to live and work and travel… with me! Amazing is an understatement! Sometimes I feel like I should come with a warning: Be afraid… be very afraid!)

We all want to put our best foot (and perfectly manicured hand) forward. We want to feel pretty and ‘together’ and… basically “as good as” all the other beautiful, perfect people doing exotic and exciting things and traveling to wonderful locations and beaming with their thoughtful spouses and adoring, perfect children while living their brilliant, successful lives that we see so often on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter.

We don’t like to admit our marriages have sucky moments, our kids do humiliating things, our dogs poop on our floors and we glue ourselves to the toilet.

I am NOT a propionate of airing dirty laundry via social media. That is totally not my message here… but I think far to often we see everybody else’s “perfect” airbrushed and carefully edited lives and then feel shame for our own messy, imperfect ones.

And shame is a cruel enemy of our souls. 

Celebrate your friends great photos and grand excitements! Just don’t believe that is ALL there is to their lives… We are human. We struggle. We get messy. Our kids yell. We pout. We hurt. We fight battles that we simply can’t show the world. And none of that makes us a drop less worthy or precious or valuable!

A picture or a status update does NOT tell the whole story. And it doesn’t have to. As viewers and readers we just have to know that we are not comparing lives… we are seeing glimpses.

Dance with those who are having a exceptional moment!
Give grace to those who are weary and worn.
And please, don’t buy the Instagram Life Lie
that everyone has it together except for you…
We all fall down… and we get up.
Your messy, sometimes painful life is beautiful.
Scabby butt and all.