10:55 PM.
The fluorescent lights of Home Depot have a particular quality at that hour.
Unflattering.
Unambiguous.
Utterly indifferent to what you look like walking through the door.
And what I looked like was this:
Blue-and-white satin Victoria’s Secret pajamas.
The kind that suggest a woman still attempting standards even while her life is actively improvising.
Over that, a gray polo knit sweater. My son’s. Too big in the shoulders, slightly stretched at the cuffs. The kind of garment that says:
I did not plan this evening.
And on my head — a pink satin bonnet.
Pink.
Catching every lumen of that industrial overhead lighting like a crown no one voted for.
I was looking for a plumbing snake.
One of the Airbnb guests had performed what I can only describe as a feat of modern engineering. A clog so committed, so architecturally sound, that every attempt at plunging simply resulted in the water rising slowly, deliberately, almost philosophically, as if to say:
Not today.
You cannot be serious, I thought.
And then I drove to Home Depot.
The woman at the front did not stare.
Did not smirk.
Did not allow her eyes to travel from the bonnet to the pajamas and back again in that way people do when they are quietly composing a story to tell later.
She simply looked up the item in the system.
Aisle 23. Plumbing.
Like women in satin pajamas searching for drain-clearing equipment five minutes before closing was just… Tuesday.
Maybe it is.
The cashier looked at me the way people look at someone they want to offer condolences to but are not entirely sure of the protocol.
“Looks like you’re having a really bad night.”
And I laughed.
Not because it was funny exactly, but because sometimes your life becomes so layered — so many things happening at once, so many versions of yourself operating simultaneously — that the only honest response to a stranger’s observation is laughter.
What was I supposed to say?
I’m a Physician Assistant re-entering the workforce.
I consult on menopause policy.
I write devotionals.
I manage an Airbnb.
And tonight I needed a plumbing snake.
So I laughed.
Paid for the thing.
And went home.
I watched a YouTube tutorial.
Worked the auger back and forth the way the video instructed. Felt something give.
Crisis over.
But here is what stayed with me:
Standing there sometime after 11 PM, bonnet intact, auger in hand, I started thinking about surgery.
About orthopedic instruments specifically. The mallets. The bone saws. The deliberate, sometimes unglamorous force required to repair something that has broken.
There is nothing delicate about correcting a femur.
There is nothing romantic about clearing a drain.
And yet both are repair.
Both require showing up, assessing the situation, and doing the unglamorous thing until the thing is done.
Maybe this season is preparing me more than I realize.
Maybe resilience is not always learned in beautiful places with good lighting and appropriate clothing.
Maybe sometimes it is learned after 11 PM in a borrowed sweater and a pink bonnet, walking into a hardware store with the particular confidence of a woman who has decided that embarrassment is a luxury she does not currently have time for.
The toilet works.
The bonnet survived.
And I am still figuring it out.
“She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future.”
For more Sunday Stills, click here.
Leave a Reply