Today, for the most part, was fabulous. Let’s talk about what sucked.

This evening I went to Starbucks to use their internet and watch a live video about boundaries. Well, first off, I forgot my laptop. No problem, I thought, I can watch on my phone. Which worked until my battery ran low and I didn’t have my charger with me. No problem, I thought, I’ll sit in my car and use my car charger. Then I thought, But first I’ll put more honey in my hot tea. Which is where things started sucking. You know how honey can be kind of thick so you have to really apply pressure to those little ketchup-sized packets in order to get the honey to come out? Well, my hand slipped while I was trying to get the honey out–and I knocked over my hot tea.

All over the counter, the floor, and–my phone.

Which isn’t waterproof.

As this isn’t the first time this has happened (I’m a hot-tea-spillin’ pro), I immediately wiped my phone on my shorts, then wiped down the counter. As for the floor, I asked the staff for help. “Hey man,” I said, “I’m sorry, but I spilled hot tea all over the floor.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’ll get the mop.”

At which point I headed to my car and got totally engrossed in the video about boundaries.

A couple hours later, I noticed the volume button wasn’t working on my phone, which I attributed to the fact that my battery was still low. Maybe it’s because I put it in power-saving mode, I thought. Then when I got home and my main power button wasn’t working either, I remembered the The Great Hot Tea Accident of 2019 and thought, Houston, we have a problem.

When I first spilled the tea, I was tempted to self-flagellate, to make myself wrong for–I don’t know–being a human. But when I worked at summer camp and kids used to spill their milk, I just thought, Shit happens, and cleaned it up. Knowing that some of the kids came from homes in which they were yelled at for spilling things, I always figured the best thing I could offer them was my understanding. Summed up, my philosophy was–be kind and help. Anyway, tonight I tried applying this philosophy to myself. I figured I didn’t know WHY anything happens. Maybe I was being delayed, kept out of a traffic accident. Maybe I needed to simply receive understanding from someone else. Maybe the guy behind the counter needed someone to minister to.

Now that I have more information about what happened tonight–like, I partially fried my phone–I still think all of this applies. That is, there’s no point in thinking, I screwed up. Rather, I’m seeing it as an opportunity to extend grace to myself. Seen symbolically, it could also be a chance for me to “unplug” for a moment or to reevaluate the boundaries I have with technology. Couldn’t we all take a serious step back from our devices? Which is what I’m about to be forced to do. As soon as I post tonight’s blog, I’m turning off my hotspot and phone and letting it dry out.

If it’s not healed in the morning (or by tomorrow night), I’ll take it to a shop.

The last thing that occurs to me in terms of the symbolism of this incident is that I always spill hot tea on my devices (uh, just two so far). Never coffee. Never water. So there might be something to consider about my spilling tea, or gossiping. I don’t consider myself a HUGE gossip, but I certainly do it, so I think it’s worth taking a look at. Where do I make things my business that aren’t my business? Where do I betray secrets? Linking everything together, one of the points of the video I watched tonight was that in today’s world of social media, it’s way too easy to get involved in someone’s else’s life, put your nose where it doesn’t belong, and dish the dirt about each other. Who’s going to stop us? Only ourselves. This is the thing with boundaries. They’re just as much if not more so about the limits you place on yourself as the ones you place on others.