The day started out pretty easy. My reporter and I were doing an oh so light and fluffy story about Katy Perry being invited to a high school prom in Santa Clarita.
Nothing to it. Wouldn’t be winning an Emmy on this one, but still doing a competent job was a priority.
We were done and heading back to the station early. No live shot and a strong possibility I could be home sipping a beer while ordinary mortals were gnashing their teeth in traffic.
I was almost giddy, but then the reporter mentioned how easy the day was going.
OH, CRAP!
It’s the same in a lot of other jobs. It’s a universal truth that you never never never NEVER comment out loud on how easy a day you’re having.
We made it back to the station, but got hustled out the door on a breaking news story.
To make matters worse, the breaking news was a fatal officer involved shooting.
I needed to check my frown and wrap my head around the fact that somebody was having a way worse day than I was having.
Yeah, I know I’m still being flippant even though a guy was killed.
It doesn’t really matter that it was a bad guy and he had hurt people in the course of meeting his own destiny. Some people might even say, he got what he deserved for the choices he made that day.
I’ll leave that particular opinion to those other people. For myself, I’ll just try to remember it’s still a tragedy that someone lost their life.
I got home late. We were live and then had to wait for a night side crew to come out and take over the story.
I gnashed my teeth in traffic on the way home, but still had an ice cold beer. I needed it and was thankful for it.
The day didn’t end as well as I’d hoped. Still, I know it could have been worse.
