S.N.A.F.U.

It’s not like I took off early today for fun. Sure, I had personal business (my blinds were to be installed), but it wasn’t water skiing or hiking or anything like vacation. Still, it was time off of work, and somebody somewhere decided I owed them for it.

It started when I was still at work. I had to pick up some small trees from a nursery we don’t use very often. Hence, I took the wrong road. Thankfully, my compatriot phoned for the proper directions, and he was raised in the area, so he knew the shortcut to get there, avoiding a return trip all the way to town.

I got back to work, dropped off the trees, tidied up my desk, and hightailed it to my car. I had just enough time to get home -- if not for the road construction. Actually, the construction wasn’t the problem, it was the drivers who didn’t see or ignored the large, orange "Right Lane Closed Ahead" signs and then expected us to be nice and let them at the last second. Of course, when I did leave a break to let in a car, some crazy woman came up from my left side, barely squeezed between me and the car patiently waiting in the median to turn left, and took the opening. (At the intersection, some of these same drivers completely ignored the no right turn arrow.)

Officially late for the blinds installers, I pulled into my parking lot and saw several cars that don’t belong there, all parked on "my" side of the lot. Two, apparently, belonged to the grounds maintenance business, and the one (with out-of-state plates) actually in my parking space is a guest at the inn next door. (Yet another person who can’t read or ignores the signs telling them where to go.) No sign of the blinds installers’ vehicle, though. "Great," I thought, "they’ve already left a nasty message on my machine and left."

Well, I was home, and that was a good thing at any rate. Then I reached my hand into my pocket and found a bunch of air. My house keys were missing. The wrong road, stupid drivers, inconsiderate parkers, the blinds guys had been and gone, and now I couldn’t even get inside. Could this day get any worse? (Just wait.)

I had borrowed a coworker’s truck to pick up the trees, and he has half the keys in the world on his keychain, so I wisely figured that my keys got snagged and then fell off when I was removing his keys from my pocket. I phoned work: no keys in the office, nor in the truck. I phoned the nursery: there they were (ten miles south of town)! I phoned work again and asked someone to go get them. In the meantime, I borrowed my spare from the condo. board president. (Remember: I couldn’t go for them myself because I was expecting the blinds installers.)

Sure enough, one of the new messages on my answering machine was the blinds guy, who said he had misplaced his appointment book and couldn’t remember if he was supposed to be here at noon or twelve-thirty. Wrong! It was one o’clock, thank you very much. I phoned him, left a voice mail, and went to fix a late lunch.

I decided to have dinner instead, so I popped a TV dinner in the oven and started fixing my salad. On the way from the refrigerator to the counter, the cottage cheese decided it was time to test Newton’s Theory of Gravity. Don’t worry; the container wasn’t full. (It was full yesterday.) Oh well, I was planning on washing the floor after the blinds guys left anyway, and did I really need all that cottage cheese in the first place?

Apparently not, because, on the way back to the fridge, guess who jumped ship again? That’s right, and now I have 1/4 the cottage cheese I started with. (Silver lining: the garbage disposal works fine.) Maybe it wasn’t my fault. Maybe the magnetic polarity of the earth changes during the day, especially around my giant, non-magnetic, stainless steel fridge, and I’m normally not home that time of day to experience it.

By the way, maybe my dad or one of my more technically minded friends can tell me the answer to this. (It sounds like physics.) Why is it that, the less cottage cheese there is to spill, the farther it goes?

The blinds guys arrived just as I removed my TV dinner from the oven, but that was just coincidence, not another snarl. They are still here as I type this, and everything is fine so far, but I’ll wait until they’re done before I post this, just to make sure.

I brushed my teeth right after eating, so I wouldn’t want dessert, but I think I’ll treat myself to a Dr. Pepper this afternoon. After the day I’ve had, I deserve it.

Postscript - It took a little over two hours for them to finish. (The arches are a lot more complicated to install than the regular, rectangular up-and-down blinds.) Whoever cut the arches didn’t follow the patterns exactly, though. They fit perfectly up at the top, but there are gaps on each side large enough to see through. I guess I’ll have to take that up with the store. Plus, the door blind cords were supposed to be continuous, not hanging, so now I have to be careful not to catch the cords in the doors when I close them. Still, I now can go to bed without worrying about freaks looking through the front doors at my feet, and I can eat in the kitchen without the B&B patrons seeing me. I am so happy, I do the dance of joy!