Reflections - Parable of the Glass of Water

Glass of Water

Doris gets the credit.

She—a kindred spirit, retired teacher, and ally in the Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters group—bonded with me. I could count on Doris for lifting my spirits through frequent morning emails. Some made me smile at spelling inconsistencies (tough, cough, through, though). Others made me laugh at silly photos (a science project of eclipse stages illustrated with Oreo cookies). Her latest email made me think. It came the Tuesday after I posted “A Stressful Process.”

The story in that morning email described a young woman—most women are young compared to Doris and me—holding a glass of water over her head. The young woman twisted the half-empty, half-full explanation her audience expected by asking, “How heavy is this glass of water?” For her, the answer depended on how long the person held the glass. If I held the glass a minute—no problem. Holding it an hour, I would need Tylenol and a heating pad. A day? Impossible. I would have triggered an arthritis flare up long before the twenty-four hours ended.

In the parable the glass of water represented stress. Auditing French Creek Township’s finances had filled my glass. Grateful Doris sent me a health tip, I reasoned with myself. Put the glass down at night and rest. You won’t get overwhelmed. And put it down every fifteen minutes during the audit too.

Feeling my abdomen muscles unclench, I tapped computer keys to answer the email. “Love this, Doris. Thanks.”

“Thought you and your team could use that wisdom,” popped into my inbox.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Doris’s wise words cleared right off

I shut the computer down and drove to auditing determined to follow the advice of setting the glass of stress down every fifteen minutes or so. 

The complicated credit card bills altered my intentions. I thought we’d nearly tamed the messy paperwork last week, but I couldn’t find several purchases that Tuesday morning. Yikes! Maybe they were on the bills I left with Jill, the secretary-treasurer, when I met with her the previous night. Jill worked at home for a bank during the day. Would she have time to answer the phone let alone hand the bill to me? Panicked, I called her.

Her calm voice reassured me. “I’ll put the papers in the screen door for you. I got the Berkherhimer tax deposits for you this morning. I’ll include them too.”

After gulping lunch, I gripped the steering wheel and raced across County Line Road. My eyes scanned for state troopers and leaping deer. I turned onto Route 19 then crunched the gravel on Jill’s driveway. Slamming the car door, I hustled up the steps to her side porch, snatched the folder wedged between the screen door and frame, and grabbed the railing to plunge to the stone walkway.

A clucking chorus halted my descent. A turkey, her feathers tucked neatly, and a flock of hens strutted to the porch. The two roosters, that Jill warned me got aggressive, and the tom turkey must have stayed by the coop fifty yards away. The vocal birds stopped strutting but continued their serenade. 

In awe, I crept down the stairs and edged to the car. “Hey, ladies. Nice to see you too.”

They followed me on the grass by the path, across the gravel, and surrounded the Subaru. 

“Careful now. Stay clear of the car.” Wondering if one would flutter inside the front seat with me, I opened the door. “You don’t want to get smooshed.” When I started the engine, the turkey led the hens across the field. I gazed in wonder at the disappearing cluckers. They not only helped me put down the glass of stress, they emptied it. 

Turkey

Humming along with a CD of soothing Japanese folk tunes played on a koto, I drove back to the church. I didn’t need to watch for state troopers.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Turkey and hens cleared right off

Later that afternoon, Kathy, a neighbor and township supervisor, called. “Jill said yinz needed paperwork for the truck license. I drove to Michelle Brooks’s office in Greenville and got it.” Kathy panted as if she’d run part way. “It’s only a copy of the check and a letter explaining the expense. Is that good enough?”

“That’s perfect, Kathy. Thank you. I appreciate you making the extra trip.”

“Well,” her voice had a blush in it, “not everyone is so easy to please.”

“Being a supervisor has to be stressful with people complaining all the time.”

“Heck yeah,” her voice came through the phone line as a shout. We exchanged stressy work stories until I shared Doris’s glass of water email.

“You know, I try to do that,” Kathy said. “I relax with a movie or something else at night. But sure enough, I wake at three fretting about someone’s complaint.”

That evening, I decided to use the first half of Kathy’s routine. I snuggled under my princess blanket to watch Love by Accident. Then I fell asleep dreaming of Daphne and William pretending to date leading to real dating in the rom-com. 

Glass of stress raised aloft

Kathy’s evening movie cleared right off

Unfortunately, I adopted Kathy’s whole routine. At three o’clock I woke with my mind searching through the township’s credit card bills. And the waking up moments increased in frequency. My glass of water seemed to be a gallon jug. I scribbled notes on these”alarming” issues and took them to Jill the following Friday evening. 

She and her American Leopard Hound Rocky met me at the screen door. She smiled and stepped back. He wagged his tail and wriggled his brindled body. We gathered at the round dining room table—the computer by Jill, the file boxes by me, and Rocky stretched between us on the floor. Together we fixed miscoded expenditures and resolved item after item on the night-bothering list. Her comments, “Anyone can make mistakes,” “the credit card bills are so confusing,” and “I’m learning so much from doing the audit,” gave a brighter perspective to the paperwork strewn before us.

Midway through the evening, she walked to the kitchen. A clink-clink of ice cubes dropping into an empty glass woke Rocky. He trotted off to chomp on a cube. Setting a glass of water on the table for me, Jill provided a physical reminder to put down stress. I hadn’t needed that cue. The warm welcome she and Rocky had given plus the positive attitude toward the audit had already lowered my stress.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Jill and Rocky cleared right off

A week after Doris had sent the stress managing email, I returned to the church with every document in place and every transaction checked. The township books should balance. But our total differed from the bank’s by nearly four thousand dollars. Illogical. Frustrating. Nail biting. Contemplating pulling our hair out, we auditors pondered why it was fashionable for men to go bald but not women. I couldn’t put the stress glass down.

Scanning the ledgers for the umpteenth time that afternoon, Sandi yelled, “I found it.”

The ledger listed and expense twice, but Jill had paid it once. We tossed rulers into the air, pumped fists, and stamped feet. A similar error drew us even closer—but auditing isn’t a game of horseshoes.

March 1, we checked through the ledgers for the fifth time with no progress. Over lunch break, I spooned in chicken barley soup and called Jill. “Would you have time to email a pdf of another trial balance with the duplicate items removed? That might help us narrow it down.”

“Sure.” Her confident voice raised my hopes. “I had to make a cash deposit for the sale of the scraper at the bank. I’m driving home right now. I’ll email the balance sheet as soon as I get back.”

With Jill’s report in hand I met the other two auditors. Their faces drooped. Sandi shrugged off her coat, grabbed a file from the boxes, and searched yet again. Carol slumped into her chair and asked, “What do you suggest now?”

“Jill emailed a new trial balance.” I handed the papers to Carol. “Let’s start with the bank accounts. Heaven knows we checked the code totals enough times.”

Carol called off numbers.

I stared at our totals for bank reconciliations in my notebook. “Check . . . check . . . WAIT! What was that last one?”

Sandi set down her folder. Carol straightened in her chair and repeated the number. I threw my notebook into the air. “The general banking account is off!”

Normally that event would cause auditors apprehension.

With joyful hearts, however, we whipped out our calculators, decided we needed to find $147.49. A half hour search later, we found the culprit. One of five online fourth quarter debits hadn’t been listed in the ledger until January. The amount? Exactly $147.49. We had balanced the books to the penny.

Carol’s shoulders lowered. She smiled in relief. 

Sandi and I wiggled our fannies and whooped.

Glass of stress raised aloft

Balancing to the penny cleared right off

I’d wiggled and whooped the final stress away. That night, tucked under a warm flannel sheet, fleece blanket, and log cabin quilt, I drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep until 4:30 a.m. No ledger lines, no dollar amounts, no document search disturbed me. I just had to pee.

Doris gets the credit. She made the difference by sharing the parable. Raising and lowering that proverbial glass of stress, like performing dumbbell overhead presses, taught me a lesson I can apply to township audits in years ahead—even if the stress feels like a rain barrel of water. And I have eleven months of the lowered glass to relish.

Balanced to the Penny