Frustration Begets Inspiration

The lake where I eat lunch often has been as peaceful and relaxing as ever lately, with the exception of one thing. Now that summer has passed and the boat rental booth is closed for the season, people are starting to assume that the well-placed man in business attire, who is eating his lunch in the shade by the lake, would know how to rent a boat on such a beautiful day.

Well, I don’t, so stop asking.

This has become somewhat of a daily occurrence, which only annoys me in that I don’t have an answer for them. Today, two groups asked me this, along with a multitude of follow up questions, which I answered as best I could. I tried to be friendly with my answers, but when an older gentleman struck me with “well, do you know the number we can call to find out?” in a tone usually reserved for customer service hotlines, I decided to drop all pretenses of being helpful. With a bigger smile, I repeated my opening line, “Sorry, I don’t work here,” but this time I ended the sentence there.

While I returned to my lunch, I now had more to chew on than another perfectly-crafted Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich. People can sometimes annoy me, hence my daily trip to the quiet of the lake. But, if you think about something long enough, some good’s got to come out of it. Yep, frustration begets inspiration:

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Not Staff by johntduffy

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That’s funny to me.

I'll have to find a way to darken my wife's sketch on the front, but I have a strange feeling that this will not be the last time that A Portrait of Me finds his way onto a T-Shirt. One can only hope.