In early February my wife and I were on a business trip through Chicago. We were driving to the airport for our return flight when a horrendous thunder and hail storm seemed to come out of nowhere. I struggled through the stop and go drive, determined to make our flight, only to discover that they were canceling all remaining flights for the evening due to the severe weather and lightning conditions. Of course shortly thereafter the weather cleared right up.

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We had to scramble to find a hotel along with everyone else and settle in for the evening. I parked along the street in downtown Chicago at a meter with a sign which read: "no parking from 7AM - 9AM and 3PM - 5PM." Our rescheduled flight was at 9 AM the next morning so I figured that would be no problem at all.  We settled in for the evening. The next morning arrives, our alarm goes off, and Rachelle rolls over and says "Don't you have to go move the car? It's 7AM."
 
I quickly pull on a pair of jeans and my sneakers without socks and hustle out the door, pulling a shirt over my head with the sleepy dust still in my eyes
and hair standing up. I take what must be Chicago's slowest elevator, hustle to the front doors and walk to the left down the sidewalk. I look for the rental car while trying to remember which color it was, when I suddenly wonder if I'm on the right street.

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It's 7:04 and there are no cars parked along this street. I stand there in disbelief scanning up and down the street when I notice a tow truck with blinking lights sitting at the stoplight just ahead with what appears to be our rental car attached to the back.

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I take flight, running towards the tow truck. I get about 20 feet from the tow truck and the light turns green. He drives 2 more blocks and then makes a left heading down past the McDonald's and the Rain Forest Café. I'm still running at an all out sprint whistle hollering at the tow truck guy and praying for another red light. 

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Finally he catches one and I'm able to catch up to the driver and tap on his window. Of course I'm dealing with a native Chicagoan who rolls his window down about an inch and says "yeah, what do you want?" "Well my rental car would be nice", I reply between heavy breaths of air while the sweat begins to run down my head. No reply. He simply begins to roll his window back up. I quickly ask where he is taking the car and as he starts to pull away from the green light, and he blurts out an address then steps on the gas.

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Now I'm standing there in the middle of the street as cars start to pass on either side of me, watching as our car rolls down the road on the back of that
truck. I start walking back to the hotel and on my way I'm kind of shaking my head in a bit of disbelief at this unfortunate situation. 

It's at this point that I'm facing a decision to either start using expletives and get angry, or process the whole situation and understand that these people
are just really good at their job which is unfortunate for me. I choose to remain calm.

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I pull out my phone and call for an Uber driver who appears 60 seconds later. He drives to the address that I was given and says, "I don't see your car".
We're actually sitting on the top of the freeway bridge system, with no impound lot in sight. I ask the driver to sit tight for just a second and step out to
ask a bystander if I'm at the right place. The guy explains that the address I'm looking for is actually under us. I'm on the freeway above the impound lot.  I turn around to my Uber and notice him pulling away. 

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Again, I shake my head. Again I choose to remain calm and handle the situation. Now I must walk nearly half a mile back the freeway to take the stairs to the lower level and half a mile back to the lot directly below me.  When I finally reach the impound lot there are further mixups with car registration paperwork as they cannot accept the original rental receipt as proof of my rental - because it technically expired the day before. Ugh!

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More hurdles where the impound lot only accept faxes, but Avis can only email rental paperwork, and so on and so on as the time ticks away and the flight that leaves at 9 AM is now at risk.

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Through it all I do my best to keep my spirits up, to remain calm, and overcome each challenge. I eventually get the car, rush back to the hotel, and we
leave within minutes without eating breakfast. We run through the airport to catch our flight as the very last people to board and continue homeward.

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I suppose the moral of the story is that regardless of how my day began, I chose to remain positive and not let it ruin the rest of my day. I remained
positive and considered as the flight took off that those troubles were behind me and would not impact my attitude. 

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Sometimes I hear people say "it's going to be a rough day" and that causes the rest of their day to be just that, rough. But you know what, the rest of my
day was a great day.

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So I encourage you not to let circumstances determine your attitude, rather let your attitude positively affect your circumstances. Oh, and set alarms on
your phone to beat those parking meter warnings!