It was 12 noon. I was sitting at my desk at home, having finished up all of the half-completed jobs and rescheduling all of the ones I hadn't yet started. From 5pm, I was on holiday for a whole week. If I could get through the next few hours without anything too troublesome, I'd have nothing complicated to hand over...
And yet ... from previous experience there has always been two unexpected things that have cropped up to spoil my clean slate. Suddenly, someone phoned up with a problem which I couldn't deal with - and she was adamant that she was making it my problem! Through hard work, ingenuity and a lot of prayer the problem soon unravelled, and the customer was happy. I hung up the phone, satisfied that I had dealt with that issue.
And then I waited for the other shoe to drop.
If you know the phrase, it's an idiom meaning you are waiting for the seemingly unavoidable (and typically negative) thing to happen. I understand it alludes to a person awakened in the night by a neighbour who loudly dropped one shoe on the floor. The person then waits inevitably for the second shoe to be dropped.
Except - why did I expect there to be another shoe? Why was I at risk of ruining a perfectly good afternoon, just waiting for my worst fears to come true? It took me a while to shake myself out of this way of thinking.
Soon, it was 5pm. The other shoe never dropped.
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