Last week, I accompanied my daughter and two friends to the Chicago area for a drum major camp.  As we were boarding the plane, a little girl in front of me decided to demonstrate her stop, drop, and roll skills all the way down the jetport – from the gate to the plane.

Her mother looked at me and shrugged. “I suppose I should be freaking out about all the germs, but for all we know, this plane could fall out of the sky.  What’s a few germs compared to that? Sometimes you just gotta roll with it.”

When my daughter was that age (about four), if she would’ve rolled on the floor in public, I probably would’ve freaked and hissed warnings about straightening up and acting right.  But the little girl on the plane was otherwise well-behaved during the flight and as we disembarked, I found myself thinking about the woman’s serene “roll with it” approach to life.

Little did I know her advice would come in handy on the trip home because it ended up being a nightmare: our flight was cancelled; we were stranded in the airport late at night; the airline wasn’t giving food or hotel vouchers; instead  they were dishing up heaping helpings of very bad customer service. It was awful.

At one point, I felt myself edging toward a meltdown. But as I looked at the three girls who were depending on me to set the tone and get them through this, I remembered the sage woman at the start of our trip saying, “Sometimes you just gotta roll with it.”

So, that’s what we did. After we found a hotel room and ordered in pizza and ice cream, we started to find the humor in the mishaps. Later, I decided to further sooth myself with a little retail therapy via a virtual shopping trip to the Sky Mall (well, they do encourage you to take the magazine…) .

It had been a while since I’d done more than casually flip through the Sky Mall, but I always remembered it offering elegant things I’d love to have but wouldn’t necessarily buy for myself – like upscale office accessories and luxury spa items…

I don’t know if it was my “find the humor and roll with it” mood or if I hadn’t really been paying attention to Sky Mall in the past, but there were some odd things in the catalogue.  Some of them were so funny/surreal I laughed out loud.

So you too can roll with the fun, I will now present – a la David Letterman – my top ten weirdest Sky Mall finds (with a descriptive quote pulled from the catalogue) :

10. Video Recording Sunglasses – $199.95 –  “These are the glasses with a built-in video camera that allow you to discreetly record all that you see.”  Really? Because with the hole in the bridge and bulging ear pieces, no one would ever guess you were up to something…

9. Couture Face Mask – $9.95 –  “Allows users to be stylish while staying healthy…offers the same protection as traditional masks, but without the hospital look.”    What more can I say?  

8. Wrist cell phone carrier – $29.95 – “Make a fashion statement! Best of all, it can be quickly and easily flipped open to answer with a flick of the wrist.” I think I saw this in Napoleon Dynamite.

7. Passing the Bar game- $119.99 – “With ‘Passing the Bar’ flashcards, your favorite law student will spend more time studying in an enjoyable, fun setting.”  A few lawyer jokes come to mind, but I’m not going there.

6. Underwater Pogo Stick – $59.95 – “This is the only pogo stick designed for use in swimming pools that allows you to perform a variety of waterborne stunts as you bounce off walls or bottoms.” There’s probably a reason this is a one-of-a-kind design.

5. Head Spa Massager  – $49.95 – “It’s like thousands of tiny fingers simultaneously massaging your scalp.” And there’s the added benefit of the oh-so-cool Trojan look.  

4. Cat Toilet Training System – $59.99 – “You can teach your cat to use any human toilet in eight weeks or less.” It was the picture that got me with this one. I mean, look at the cat’s face as he’s sitting on the toilet. He looks like he’s saying, “Do you mind??”

3. Telekinetic Obstacle Course  – $99.95  – “This is the game that uses your focused brain waves to maneuver a ball through an obstacle course.”    I wonder if wearing the Head Spa Massager would help here?

2.  There was a tie for second place:

Zombie of Montclaire Moors – $89.95 – “This zombie garden statue brings the flesh-hungry undead to your daffodil bed!”  Seriously?
Mombasa the Garden Giraffe – $995.00 – “Since there’s no hiding this realistically hand-painted, exclusive sculpture, even amidst your tall trees and hedges, your neighbors are sure to be surprised when Mombasa moves in next door.”  Who needs yard flamingos when you can have an 8-foot giraffe?
((((((((Drum roll)))))))))) The number one weirdest find in the Sky Mall magazine is….
The Garden Yeti Sculpture  $98.95 – “Our Garden Yeti sculpture commands a unique presence in home or garden.” Because every family deserves their own personal Sasquatch.

Special thanks to the calm Chicago-bound mom for being a good influence. The next time my attitude starts to blaze. I’ll remember to stop, drop and roll with it… and look for the humor.

Remember, we’re giving away a Sony e-reader, and all you have to do to win is comment on the blogs. A winner will be randomly picked from all those who comment until Wednesday, June 30. So the more you comment, the more chances you have to …win! So here’s a question for you: How do you cope with life’s upsets?

Be sure to check out Nancy Robards Thompson’s Silhouette Special Edition, Accidental Father. RT Book Reviews gives it 4 ½ stars and says: “…This heartwarming story with strong, genuine characters and a strong plot to match is definitely hard to put down.” Available July 2010.