Friday poetry challenge: Small but mighty

I was sitting at a laundromat waiting and sweating and swatting bugs and wondering how a business dedicated to the pursuit of cleanliness could accumulate so much filth when suddenly, in the midst of all this mess, I received a text stating that electricity had been restored at my house. 

Hallelujah. Just a little over two days without power had transformed me into a gibbering idiot. I don't know how people live without easy access to electricity and running water, but I also don't know how profs function without access to Microsoft Word, which my college laptop suddenly refused to run this week. I had hoped to keep that cranky old laptop creaking along until I retire in December, but the laptop had other ideas. 

Now I have power and running water and a new (well, less old) laptop willing to do whatever I need, and in a few days I'll have access to my classroom building again, after the masters of mold remediation perform their whole-building magic. There isn't a laundromat on the planet big enough to complete that cleaning job, and if there were, it would be full of bugs, just like my errant computer.

Well I'm raving. Everything is swirling together in my head, including the all-day New Faculty Orientation I led today. Being "on" all day taxed the people skills that have been lying dormant all summer, but I ushered a string of competent colleagues through the room until the newbies had been oriented to within an inch of their lives. 

Later I arrived home exhausted to find the resident lumberjack cooking a wonderful supper, even though he'd been busy chopping up chunks of fallen trees, meeting with the insurance claims adjuster and the Spectrum cable dude, conferring with the helpful neighbor who offered to help him haul out the whole tree lodged under our bridge, and, yesterday, driving our son to Columbus, where he was adjudged too sick to undergo his scheduled treatment.

Nothing made me happier all week than to finally see my son eating solid food tonight, even if he was still in some pain. Small improvements matter, like clean clothes and a hot shower, helpful neighbors and competent IT guys. Shove all of this week's ups and downs into a washing machine and you never know what might come out when the agitator stops:

Bugs in the laundromat,
bugs in the tech,
mold in the office building--
who can say what's next?

Smiles in the meeting room,
water in the pipes, 
solid food that tastes so good--
little things, but nice.

And that's where I end this impossible week: nestled within the niceness. I'll take that over a filthy laundromat any day of the week.

Now your turn: show us little things that make a difference, for good or ill.