On a very rainy day, two weeks ago, a friend and I were seated on a Hacienda at the Canyon Community Bus ready to be taken to a symphony concert. A driving, heavy rain began as we pulled out of the parking lot.  A man  sitting in the row next to us looked at his lap, and then glanced up at the ceiling. The roof was dripping water!  He decided that 30 more minutes of overhead leakage was too much, because now his wife was also getting wet. So, he opened his voluminous golf umbrella. Suddenly, I felt water on my face and noticed that a leak had also sprung above my head, so I too, opened my umbrella. Now, there were two of us, holding open umbrellas, inside the bus.  I’m not sure how that looked to people in passing cars, but I’m sure they were no more surprised than we were.

Life is filled with the unexpected, but it’s not the surprise that matters, it’s how you react to it.

Years ago, cruise ships provided the services of clergy to their passengers—a minister, a priest and a rabbi. When my Dad retired, he and my Mom were invited to join the clergy on a 3-month cruise around the world.  As the days passed, my parents befriended the young priest.  One evening, there was a dance aboard ship, and the priest danced with a few of the older ladies. A busybody criticized him for doing so. Her criticism arrived like a bolt out the blue, and naturally the young priest was upset.  He came to my Dad for solace.  Dad said to him, “When dancing with those old ladies, did you have impure thoughts?”  The young priest laughed and said, “Absolutely not!”  “Then,” said Dad, you can tell your Superior that you received special dispensation from your Rabbi!”

When my husband, Warren, was in graduate school at Purdue University, we became friends with a couple from New York. They lived in a place that had been converted from a dental office into an apartment. One day, they came home from classes and discovered a man sitting in their living room.  He was reading a paper,—“Statistical Analysis of Marketing Data.” He looked up and said, “Will the Dentist be here soon?” Astonished, our friend’s wife said, “This is not a dental office.  It is our apartment and you are sitting in our living room!” “Oh,” he replied, as he put on his coat, but before he left he added, “You should consider getting better reading material.”

Surprises followed us everywhere. When we moved to Chicago, my husband’s friends suggested a fraternity reunion at Indiana University combined with a basketball weekend. I had not attended Indiana University nor been a member of a fraternity, but thought it sounded like fun. So, we two couples, crammed into a car with a third couple, and drove to Bloomington, Indiana—not a short haul from Chicago. When we arrived at the hotel, Warren asked the desk clerk if the other 10 couples had arrived. The desk clerk said, “What other 10 couples?” Oops! the unforeseen had happened. “Did you send the invitations?” “No, I thought you were sending them.” We had driven all that way to reunion with each other.

A surprise is like a cat in a bag, once you pull it out, you can’t stuff it back in. When we moved to Tucson, Arizona from Atlanta, Georgia we were warned by old-timers, “You will find out that Tucson is a place everyone wants to visit. Be wary of surprise visits!” The first year, we happily invited and entertained many good friends from far and wide. It was lots of fun, but one day I received a phone call from a woman in Atlanta that I didn’t really know very well.  Excitedly, she said, “I just want to let you know that next week we are coming to Tucson.” Now I knew—but what to do? I thought quickly and then said, “What a lovely surprise, and where are you staying?” Never heard from her again.

A young couple we knew received a generous wedding gift from her parents. They had bought them a house! The couple was thrilled until they discovered the surprise. Her parents had an extra set of keys—to get in—anytime! The marriage didn’t last. I don’t know who got the house.

As much as we might want to, it is impossible to script every moment of our lives. There’s always an unforeseen event around the corner. Sometimes that’s a good thing—other times not so much, but if we don’t go with the flow, we just might drown.  Life can be puzzling, and things happen when least expected.

For instance, I am convinced that some people in Texas were astonished when they opened their newspaper and saw a photo of Ted Cruz, the man they had voted for to be Senator. I am sure that some people scratched their heads and said, “He sure doesn’t look like the Cruise guy I voted for. He was so good in, “Top Gun Maverick.”  SURPRISE!

Esther Blumenfeld