Poll: You get a flat tire. How do you deal?

Because I had spent a practically perfect weekend away with two of my favorite lady friends, of course something had to go wrong on the way home. After we lurched in stop-and-go traffic for an hour, my bus broke down on the side of the Jersey Turnpike. As we waited over an hour for a replacement bus to pick us up, some people whipped themselves into a lather. They called the bus company to demand a refund on their $12 ticket, and dialed up their credit card company to ask about traveler's insurance (do I need to tell you that call was unsuccessful?). Some passengers just complained loudly to whomever would listen. A guy seated nearby started making jokes. My seatmate turned to me as she cued up another episode of Arrested Development. "At least neither of us is traveling with a baby." In one sentence, I went from being feeling pretty zen about the whole thing to being seriously grateful the situation wasn't so much worse.

My seatmate and I got the last two seats on the replacement bus, and this morning, there was an email in my inbox from the bus company apologizing for the inconvenience and offering a refund. It nailed the moral home for me: the solution to our broken-down bus was going to be the same whether I flipped out or not. The bus would arrive when it could, and we'd either get seats or we wouldn't. In stressful situations, some people feel better when they kick and scream. Outrage can give you a feeling of control and comfort. But for me, the best course of action was to pull out my Anne Tyler novel, breathe in and out, and save my emotional energy for a situation I actually had some control over. One way of dealing isn't necessarily better than another. When it comes to fire drills, stuck elevators, and flat tires, how would you deal?