Last night I felt my husband nudge me and mumble something like, “Michi flushed her key down the toilet.” Figuring I must be dreaming, I grunted at him and went back to sleep.

Turns out, it wasn’t a dream. This morning when I padded downstairs, I found our au pair sitting at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. “I have to tell you something.”

I figured it was the key thing, so I made reassuring motherly noises. “Is it about the key? Craig mentioned it . . .”

“No, not the key.” She pulled out a little sketch of a traffic pattern with two little red ovals dove-tailing. Apparently the reason she had dropped her key down the loo was because she had been distraught from an incident earlier that evening involving a very nice British man whose bumper had a close personal encounter with Michi’s on her way to her au pair’s meeting.

Michi had been having Alexander’s proverbial Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day. Right here in America.

Some days are like that. You’ve had them, and so have I. We can let them rob us of our peace . . . or we can see them as opportunities for growth. To learn how to trust. How to detach. How to let others love us, and experience that love.

“Don’t worry, Michi,” I said, putting my hand on hers. “These things happen. No one was hurt. And it’s only money.”

My husband discovered it’s going to cost $200 to replace the key. Michi laughed, “That’s $200 down the drain!”

Good girl.