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The most mundane worst-day-ever

It was like I was constantly being mildly spit upon.

Took the day off for a dentist appointment and the chance to run errands and get my new drivers license. Plus Mom was going to do all this with me so that we could have some time to hang out and visit while running said errands.

Traffic from my home to my parents was kind of yucky. No accidents or major delays, just really heavy and kind of slow. But I was singing along to JoCo and enjoying that other than being frustrated because I had a big list of things to get done and this was eating into my precious time.

Turning onto my parents road the traffic was even worse - it was a blinking school zone with buses and parents dropping off kids everywhere. A drive that usually takes about a minute now took five or ten minutes AND IT WAS KILLING ME. Thank goodness for JoCo. I had several of his songs down nearly perfectly by this time - score. Except I was grumpy.

Upon arrival I blatantly abused her washing machine and warned Dad not to be helpful and put my clothes in the drier because these are "hangyup work clothes." Then Mom and I headed out to the DMV. I had my checklist and my items. Mom wasn't quite sure where the new DMV office was, but we took a gamble and found it. (With a little bit of wondering and wandering.) At the office I messed up their really cool ticket assigning system, but the lady was hardly upset at all and helped me figure out which number I was. I think she covered her irritation really well. And the cool part was my friend Eric was working and he sneaked around to ask my number then waited for it to come up so that he could be the one to wait on me - which was fun. Only it wasn't so fun for him to have to tell me that since I didn't bring my marriage license I couldn't get the driver's license. (I had three bills with my home address, my social security cards with my old and current name, and three birth certificates: the cert of live birth, the typed hospital one, and a certified copy.) So the DMV was a bust and I'll have to try again with the marriage license included among my identity documents.

Next stop the post office, which was one street over from the DMV. We normally go to the one in the next city over because this one is usually awful, but we were right there, so it didn't make sense to go one city over. It was awful. One cashier and seven people in line. But he kept sending people away to do other things (like fill out forms) so while it was a bit of a wait it could have been worse. I got my international post card stamp, my two oversized cards stamps, and my this-envelope-is-heavier-than-an-oz stamp, and we were out of there.

Next stop the bank. I forgot to get Monkeys to sign the check I was to deposit, but they let me write "for deposit" and put it in our savings. So we were out of there. Later I remembered I was supposed to take some cash out for Monkeys, but I didn't want to go back.

The bank is on Racetrack Rd and Monkeys' new job is on Racetrack Rd. He wanted us to stop in to see the new store. But instead of turning left onto Racetrack my mom wanted to go back roads. I need to cut her some slack - she's got cataracts and has trouble with her shoulders so turning her head isn't always easy. I repeatedly offered to drive, but she really prefers to drive. So I understand her wanting to take back roads and right turns. But we didn't know how to get there from the back way. So we went down about five wrong streets before eventually finding a way there which took up a big chunk of time. But Monkeys was happy to see us, and I was happy to see him.

We stopped off at home for a bathroom break as home was on the way to WalMart. Caught the washer just in time to hang up my clothes and put on another load! Also, somehow managed to be sick. Felt better afterwards, though.

Next stop Walmart - to price optometrists as I needed glasses but didn't have insurance. I could add insurance at work, but it's expensive and a coworker told me it might be better to price Walmart's lenscenter. Turns out it was cheaper and they had an opening right then. Turns out the optometrist's daughter, who was in the office at that time, wanted to return to the college but a bad experience at a BSN Info Session, so I spent a chunk of my eye exam defending some school program policies. (If accreditation depends on doing things a certain way we have to do them that way, it's not our rules.) In a much more polite way I explained that her question actually was answered correctly because she didn't ask the right question. I think had she been one-on-one the person could have figured out what she meant versus what she said. So I was able to help her. It took up more time than my actual eye exam, but I helped someone. Go me.

In the lobby a cute old lady kept shaking and nodding her head as I tried on various frames. I could see her reflection in the mirror. She came up to me afterwards and told me she liked my shirt and that her favorite frames on me were the first pair I tried on. So sweet. I picked out a pair I liked but they didn't have a price. I was nervous because I really liked them. Asked the price - $9.00. NINE DOLLARS. So much yay! And they could do them in an hour. The day was taking an up turn.

But my dentist appointment was coming up, and we hadn't eaten yet. I didn't want to eat just before a cleaning, so I swear I suggested we go home and grab something to eat THEN go to Publix (Mom and I love going to look at their 2for1s). Instead we went to Publix. And the two things I noted from their website that I wanted - yep, this store was out of both of them.

Home. Caught that Dad had put my clothes in the drier. My wool sweaters. That can shrink. But he was trying to be nice and apparently they'd only been in there for about five or ten minutes. So I rescued them and hung them up and hoped for the best. And I knew it was really petty of me to be frustrated by him putting them in the drier despite expressly being asked not to - he was already being nice letting me use their washing machine so that I could get that done while still getting my other errands run, but I miffed. I'm chalking it up to everything else going mostly wrong that day.

By then my Dentist appointment was in about 40 minutes. Mom swore with traffic it would take a while to get to their office, but I was getting dizzy from not having eaten, so I ate an apple and brushed my teeth.

Got to the dentist's office in ten minutes. It was kind of near a Publix, so I suggested maybe we could kill twenty minutes by running over to see if they had the bread I wanted, but that didn't happen. We were also right next to another branch of the bank, and I was sure we could withdraw $20 for Monkeys in the time we had, but Mom didn't want to chance it. Again - I was being incredibly selfish. This was supposed to be a way for me and Mom to spend some time together. So we ended up just spending the time chatting, which was nice.

Left the Dentist - went to Walmart to pick up my glasses and they looked great!! Yay!! It was weird seeing stuff. Everything looked like it was in HD. They kept asking me if I was seeing okay, and I really honestly couldn't tell if it looked funny or if that was just how things were supposed to look. Mom thinks maybe the prescription is too strong, but I definitely see better out of them than my other glasses.

Then back to the bank and a different Publix since we were out and it was close by - both trips were successful. (And Mom ended up benefiting from both trips, too, which made me feel better about the extra bother.)

Home. Parents and I watched a British Mystery, and I overate bad things since by then I was so starving I didn't want to wait on cooking real food. Then I felt shame. But it had been an awful day except that nothing major had gone wrong just lots and lots of small things, so I deserved soft Bree and thin bagels with Mom's homemade fig preserves.

I waited until 5 pm then called Monkeys (he gets off work at 5) to see if he wanted to come over for a bit or go home so that I knew whether or not to stay longer or start heading home. Turns out today he was working until 6pm, so then I was in trouble for calling him at work. Grrr. I hung out another 30 minutes to wait out some of the going-home traffic then headed home. (The base gets off work between 3:30 and 4, so traffic is worse that time of day. Much better to wait for that to pass.)

It didn't pass. Traffic was so bad I couldn't make a left turn from my parent's street (why are parents still picking up elementary school kids at 5:30pm?) - so after a few minutes of sitting at the stop sign I made a right turn and decided I would try to catch a left turn at the next street. Traffic was so bad at the next street that I couldn't make a left turn. So I decided to go right and go home through a different city. I needed diesel anyway and this way the gas station would be on my right in this city as opposed to my left in the other city. But I was still irritated because it changed my plans.

Unless you own a diesel engine you might not realize that many gas stations do not sell diesel and the ones that do only have it on the outside pumps. My guess is because semi-trucks fit better on the outside pumps? And even then they generally only have it on two of the four outside pumps. So typically there are one to four diesel/gas pumps and probably 6 or 12 gas pumps. So when gas engine people take up one of the four diesel accessible pumps and leave the only-gas pumps free it's really frustrating. I hate sitting behind someone who's pumping gas while there are ten empty pumps. And sometimes the people pumping drag their feet because they are irritated that someone is waiting behind them when there are plenty of free spots open. (I usually apologize and explain about diesel pumps in the hopes that a friendly explanation might make them aware in future to leave those open when possible.) So when a guy zipped in front of me as I was pulling into the station today and took up the diesel pump that aligned with my car's passenger side tank and left other gas pumps free I mentally growled and pulled my car around to position myself at the other empty diesel pump that was set up for a driver's side tank. I was going to say something something in a friendly voice (I swear it would have been friendly) but I noticed he was pumping diesel, too. Yay!!! That made me really happy.

Finally I was home. I unpacked the car and went to the bathroom to change into bike riding clothes to try to make up for my cheesefest. I paused to stare at my new glasses in the mirror. I love my new glasses. Then I noticed something white in the corner that I hadn't seen before. I thought it was dirt or a smudge. Nope. It was a crack. My brand new glasses that had never left my face since I bought them had a crack in the left lens. I showed Monkeys when he got home and he thought perhaps there was a flaw in the lens and the crack would probably keep spreading. But he liked the frame selection. I called mom and Monkeys is going to relay them to her tomorrow so that she can take them back to Walmart to see if anything can be done.

So yeah. Everything thing I did today either had just a tinge of something going wrong or actually did go completely wrong. And I was a selfish brat on at least two occasions. But Mom liked the bree/bagel/fig preserves I made for us and said she'd try it again, so that was cool. And she gave me the jar of fig preserves we opened (she's got tons) - so yay because I'd finished off the last jar she gave me.

Mom's fig preserves make everything better. Hope tomorrow is less blechy. I think I have PMS and I'm anxious because of working the Fall Fling tomorrow and knowing I'll be out of town for convention all next week and buying Monkeys new car is taking a chunk of our savings and I'm still stressed over him losing his job of 10 years even though he got a new job that's better than most jobs in the area just not as good as his old job and that happened relatively quickly. I think I'm just really stressed right now. I think I had too much planned for today. I keep wanting to say today sucked, but then before I can get it out my mind says "well, not really. or maybe it did. i can't tell."

:( My new glasses. :(


( 7 comments — Leave a comment )
Oct. 19th, 2011 05:42 pm (UTC)
Awww girl. I"m sorry you had a rough day. I won't say "bad" day, just a rough one. But you survived!! You know what you need? Some fun time with good friends, and a margarita!! =o) (And I did the PMS thing last week and I felt grumpy all freaking week! So you're completely justified in your grumpiness.)
Love you!!!

Oct. 19th, 2011 05:43 pm (UTC)
IF it had been a no-good, horrible, terrible, bad day... then THIS would have happened to you.

Oct. 22nd, 2011 12:34 am (UTC)
What job did he end up with?
Sorry you had such frustrations to deal with.
Oct. 23rd, 2011 04:03 am (UTC)
Remember Art's store in FWB - Consulting Services Incorporated? Art retired this month and Cameron (of Cameron and Steph - from the Bards concerts and Dragoncon) leased his office and opened up a FWB branch of his Destin computer shop.

Art recommended Monkeys and Wright to work there; Cameron said "hey, I know Monkeys and Wright!"; and bingobango they had jobs. Then they didn't. Then they might in November. Then they had them starting last Monday. (It was weird for about a week as Cameron & Art worked out the switchover.)

So now Monkeys and Wright have to pass a couple of Apple certification exams (prayers welcome) and they are golden! They'd be technicians - repairing both Apple and PC products, I think. Plus other stuff. Monkeys can better tell you what it's about. While it's not as good as the base gig, it's something I think he'll be good at and he'll like in a different way. Plus, we both really like Cameron, so that's a big plus.
Oct. 23rd, 2011 01:13 pm (UTC)
Ah, understand now. Prayers will be sent.
Oct. 22nd, 2011 12:34 am (UTC)
But yay on the job front.
Oct. 23rd, 2011 04:52 am (UTC)
Thanks! :)
And Yay in return. :D
( 7 comments — Leave a comment )

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