Note: This was originally written as an e-mail to friends on Tuesday, November 21. After much pleading, I am sharing it here. Unfortunately, the collection of events below happen more often than I'd care to admit.
It all began when a computer appeared on Himself's Christmas list yesterday. Puzzled, I inquired why, since the household has three computers (four if I bring my laptop home), he felt he needed to ask for yet another computer.
"It's dead," came the response. Whether referring to people, animals or, in this case, computers, "It's Dead" is never something one is prepared to hear. I didn't even have to ask what was dead. Our "older than dirt" (as Himself refers to it) 5-year-old computer apparently had spit out the message of death: "fatal error." It didn't prompt an immediate call to Dell or to an electronics store to find out if "fatal error" was permanent. Rather, it prompted a scribbling on a list and a phone call to the devoted wife, who had already had a bad day, to announce the addition to the Christmas list. The devoted wife, of course, being devoted, provided a number for Dell with an admonition to call them before holding any graveside services.
It only went downhill from there ...
I left work to go to dinner with friends. Armed with the address of their hotel (located on a MAJOR U.S. HIGHWAY), I set off. I was going to be on time, no small feat in evening rush hour traffic in D.C. Problem is, I drove up and down the street, around the blocks (many blocks), sat in the left-hand lane holding up traffic waiting to make yet another left turn, drove slowly (to the increasing dismay of those behind me) to find the hotel, etc. No hotel. It's a major hotel on a major street in a major suburb. At this point, I was ranting much like the people you see yelling at their cars in the new Toyta commercial.
I broke down and called 411, got the number to the hotel and called the hotel. I asked the hotel where on Jefferson Davis Highway they were located. The response? "We're not on Jefferson Davis Highway." Huh? This is the Crystal City Embassy Suites, yes? Oh it was all right, but get this - the BACK of the hotel faces an elevated portion of the JD Highway. If you are looking for the back of a hotel, you might actually see their sign way up there. The ENTRANCE, however is located at the intersection of two streets, neither of which are JD Highway. And not even really at the intersection, more mid-block, as I was to find out when I realized that a bank occupies that corner.
20 minutes late, I finally pull in...
This morning, in what I am now convinced was part of a mass conspiracy, the meeting I was accidentally not invited to, moved without telling me. I sat outside, in the nearly freezing cold outside a sales office because the meeting request (forwarded to me once I realized I had been excluded) said to meet there. 10 minutes after the meeting should have begun, without anyone showing up, I walked across the street to the construction site, only to be told everyone had met up in one of the upper floors.
I called for an elevator (the elevators are manually operated in the construction zone until residents move in). No elevator. Not yet deterred, I hiked up the daunting concrete stairs. I walked in and was greeted with, "Where have you been?" I wisely pretended I hadn't heard.
Since I was driving the Hoopty Mobile without the EZPass and I didn't want to scrounge for loose change, I opted to take the back way into work from my meeting. It was all fine until, at the road's narrowest point (1 lane each way, no shoulders), I was greated with yellow caution tape and orange cones. No advanced warning the road was closed. One 15-point turn later, I turned around and began digging for change, as the toll road was my now only option.
Triumphant, I came up with the requisite dollar to get on and off the toll road. When I went to get on, I dumped in five dimes. Clink, clink, clink, clink....pause. It only registered four dimes. Panic, quick! Cars behind you, two quarters left to your name, which hold the only way of getting OFF the toll road legally. In a desparate attempt to remain an honest citizen, I began flinging pennies into the toll collector, praying that this was one of the few machines in America that recognizes we still, in fact, use them. Clink. HONK. Clink. Clink. HONK. Clink. HONK. HONK. (You get the point). Apparently, while it takes pennies, the toll collector takes an extraordinarily long time to count them - even longer than, say it takes to count 4 dimes and pause while the driver decides what to do when it eats one.
Victorious, with the cars behind me now whizzing by on either side, middle fingers waggled in salute, I continued on my journey into the office. And then ... trouble struck again. I got a charley horse in my foot. My left foot. The Hoopty Mobile is a stick. And the exit was approaching. I'd rather not discuss how I solved that problem - I'm sure it wasn't legal.The afternoon proved to be a constant flurry of mundane desk jockey work. Placated, I felt maybe that meant the rest of the day would turn out better. Wrong again. I got home, only to have barely enough time to change clothes and dash to church for the weekly youth devotional. Before I left, I hurridly pulled out frozen drink mixes to take with me. As Himself can attest to, opening our freezer means having to dodge frozen inanimate objects of random sizes that launch with the equivalent force and result of errant missiles. In the ensuing melee, a bag of shredded coconut and a bag of cranberries fell out. They burst, sending coconut and cranberries everywhere! I chased renegade cranberries across the kitchen, chalked the coconut up as a lost cause and fled the scene of the crime.
I'm praying tomorrow is better.
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