I sometimes think that the General Organizing Deity (i.e., GOD) has assigned am impish little character to oversee the order of things as perceived by humans here on earth. I’ve thought long and hard on the subject and have even given that being the job title of the Coordinator Responsible for Arranging Phenomenon (or CRAP for short).

CRAP does things like strike a mom down with a nasty virus (fever, sore throat, the whole nine yards) on Friday when her youngest son’s 5-year birthday party is scheduled for the following Sunday.

CRAP is also responsible for making sure the people who can afford to buy new gadgets (i.e. parents) are unable to figure out how to work them so they must rely on people whose allowance doesn’t even cover a month of usage (i.e., kids) and pray those little people are giving us the whole story. CRAP oversees the cable and internet providers, inspiring them to offer the Greatest Discounts Ever to new customers a month after you’ve already signed up and got locked into a 2-year plan. And I honestly think CRAP is what made Uranus fall over and spin on its side when all the other planets are behaving like up-right citizens of the solar system.

I came to the discovery of CRAP one morning when I received a phone call from my daughter at school. But first a little back story.

See, CRAP decided (out of the blue) to make my daughter’s pancreas stop working last summer, efficiently turning her into a Type 1 diabetic at the age of 11. After a couple days of being unconscious in an ICU unit at the hospital, she woke up and my husband and I had the surreal job of telling her the news and explaining that her life was permanently changed. Much to our surprise, she handled it (and still is handling it) with a grace, strength and maturity that we’d never imagined existed within her. I honestly don’t believe we would have seen that transformation in personality if she’d never been in that situation. Which means there are positives in CRAP — if you look hard enough.

Which brings me to the day I yelled “CRAP!” and realized that, indeed, is what must be at the root of all evils, inconsistencies, ironies, and unfortunate coincidences in life, and probably pointy bras, too.

As I said, my daughter called from school. She’d been feeling “funny,” so she did a blood check and learned her blood sugar was high, very very high, mid-morning. It was even higher at lunch time. The nurse had to give her a hefty injection of insulin to correct the high. She was worried: was something wrong?

I assured her nothing was wrong and hoped I was telling the truth because I couldn’t understand it. What was going on with her that would skew her numbers like that? Was she stressed? Was she getting sick? Is something else breaking down in her body?

Trying not to worry myself, I went to our log book where we record everything related to her diabetes. Each morning she takes a blood sugar reading and we give her a shot before breakfast based on that reading and the number of carbohydrates she’s about to eat (and whether or not she has gym class that day, but that’s a whole other story).

While I went over my notes, I realized there was nothing wrong with her, but CRAP!, I did my math wrong. I had under-dosed her at breakfast, which was why she was so high at lunch. Why did I do that? Because CRAP happened. CRAP gave me, a caffeine-dependent, math-challenged woman, a kid whose health needs to be monitored via carrying ones when appropriate, even if that’s before the coffee is done brewing in the morning. And it’s CRAP’s fault that my daughter has no idea what it means to “carry ones” because they don’t teach math the way they used to.

It doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t make sense. It’s like Uranus spinning on its side. But,  that’s the way it is so why complain about it? And I’d rather be bad at math than have something else be wrong with my kid.

Besides, the plus side is evident: My daughter is learning how to think for herself and make the right decisions to care for herself instead of staying dependent on mom or anyone else. She’s also learning that no one is infallible and that when things go wrong, it does no good to get upset and bitch, moan, bellyache and worry, but instead she should find out what happened so she can create a solution to prevent it from happening again.

I would love to say I’m getting better at math because of that little incident, but that would be a lie. Instead, I purchased a calculator, which probably should have been done to begin with, but better late than pregnant, right? And I, too, learned, that when things go wrong, it does no good to get upset and bitch, moan, bellyache and worry. Instead I should just find out what happened so I can create a solution to prevent it from happening again.