The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

As days went, Wednesday, December 19 looked to be a good one. It's part of my favorite time of year - the week before Christmas. I woke up looking forward to a day off work and a nice lunch with a good friend. Then I noticed my head was starting to hurt. Just a little. Not enough to really do anything about, but enough that I noticed it was there.

I was meeting my friend at 2, so I figured I'd post December's bills. This is usually a fun thing for me. I don't approach this event with the sort of dread most people do - I actually look forward to it. But things weren't adding up, and I couldn't remember the finer points of some financial juggling I'd done. And the headache started getting worse.

Before lunch, I figured I'd have time for a couple errands that would normally take about 20 minutes. So I left a little after 1:00 to make my first stop: my place of employment where the business office had a check for me. I got there at 1:15 and was greeted by a locked door and a sign that read "The business office is closed from 11:30 to 1:00 for lunch." Now, I don't begrudge my wonderful co-workers their annual Christmas lunch, but when someone says they'll be back at 1:00, shouldn't they be back by 1:15? Maybe I was doing the math wrong. By 1:20 I was starting to think that maybe they just kept time differently than I did. By 1:30 I was wondering if they were in a different time zone altogether. Finally at 1:35, they came in. A wasted 20 minutes for me. And my mind was still whirling with numbers and the headache was getting even worse.

My second errand was to a local candy store for stocking stuffers. They were out of the stuff I wanted (figures!) with the exception of nine little peanut-butter-filled Christmas trees. I snapped those up and thought I'd ask hubby to get the rest from the store near his work one day. More wasted time, my mind was still whirling with numbers, and the headache was getting even worse.

Then the traffic conspired to turn a five-minute drive to the restaurant into about fifteen. Sitting behind the second cycle of a left-turn light, I glanced at my watch. Great. It was a little after 2:00. What the heck, wasn't anybody at work?

So I waltzed into the restaurant where my friend, who is usually 10 minutes late to everything, was patiently waiting for me. Of all the days for her to be on time. Numbers whirled and the headache worsened.

By this time I was ready to drop my head onto my arms and start groaning. Instead, I took some pain pills and kept plugging away. Lunch was very nice. But it was spiced with a lot of interruptions. I'd found out at the business office that my timesheet hadn't been approved yet, so phone calls and texts flew between me and hubby and boss. Both of whom, of course, were away from their computers at the time. Of course. Still, numbers whirled and the headache hung on.

Then I realized that this was the last day hubby was going to actually be at work before Christmas. So I called him yet again to ask him to stop by the candy place near his work on the way home. By this time, I had about 1200 milligrams of ibuprofen in me and my head was still pounding. As if by a tack hammer now instead of a sledge hammer, but still . . .

Then at 4:45, my phone alarm went off, telling me I had to take my pills. Which reminded me that I needed to pick up said pills at Kroger. So I said goodbye to my friend (yes, we have long lunches) and headed to the store. Some lady near the pharmacy counter decided that the place she was standing was the line rather than the marked lane, so she wiggled in ahead of me. It would have been only a minor annoyance on any other day, but today . . . And the headache went on.

And of course, the second it was finally my turn, the phone rang. It was hubby at the candy store. So I stood in front of the sign that said "Please finish all cell phone conversations before approaching the counter" and told hubby I'd have to call him back when I was finished at the pharmacy counter.

So I headed to the car with my hands full of drugs, a gallon of milk, and a couple other odds and ends. Naturally, that's when the phone rang again. When I didn't have a hand to reach into my pocket with. Hardly anybody calls me, but when they do, it always seems to be at exactly the wrong times. The tack hammer hitting my head seemed to swell.

I finally made it home and thought I could relax a little. I just had to wait for hubby to get home with the goodies. When he did, he announced that he'd gotten a ticket on the way home. Of course he did. I should have expected nothing else. What a way to wrap up to my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Now, I realize that these are all minor things. There are a lot of people in the world who have much worse problems than these, and my heart goes out to them. But all on the same day? Come on!

And that's not counting the guy who practically side-swiped me in the roundabout, and the cat who hopped up on the kitchen counter to closely inspect some dirty dishes for food possibilities, and the . . . and the . . . Excuse me while I go drown my sorrows in chocolate.