How to Make a Day Suck in Six Easy Steps
There are days when the universe conspires against you. I'm convinced of this, especially after today.
So, as if being nervous over having my supposed big enrollment appointment at the Art Institute this afternoon wasn't enough, every random thing that wanted to throw me completely off-kilter just had to happen.
Let's look at the recipe for disaster, one ingredient at a time.
1. Waking before the alarm. Normally, this is a great thing, right? Not so much here, because it was one of those ever so annoying "wake up two minutes before the alarm goes off" things, which makes a girl feel cheated out of those last precious moments of sleep. It's mildly annoying.
2. For the first time in five years of owning the car, the battery dies. This morning. In my drive way. When I have to be to work in under thirty minutes.
Again, this could have been worse. It could have hit me on the way to work, or worse, on the way to my appointment. The problem here is that it disrupted my routine, almost made me late, and cost me one-hundred unforeseen dollars. These days, those surprise expenses ESPECIALLY blow.
This also sucks a little more than the norm because I had intended to squeeze in errands after work, before my appointment. I'm also perilously low on gas. Couldn't take care of either one, which left me without much in way of a substantial lunch to eat, and... I'm now even more perilously low on gas. Fuck.
3. Sense of direction blows. Frazzled memory malfunctions. I'm not a big fan of GPS systems since they don't always like to take me on routes I'm comfortable with attempting, so I usually map a place out ahead of time. I knew the way to the college. I left with thirty minutes ahead of me, figuring I'd have ample time to get there.
Nerves from traffic, nerves from the stupidity of the early part of the day, nerves from thinking I'd have to pay up stupid amounts of money to get things done... whatever it was, I missed my turn. I wind up going many blocks before thinking I'm probably way off course.
Mom's home, I call her for a direction check. She tells me I've gone too far.
"Um... Shit," I say.
So my helpful mother commences to snap and snarl at me about using the GPS, which I inform her is sitting on my shelf at home since I figured I knew the way. She gets angrier, so I abort dealing with more tension I don't need at a moment when I'm trying to get my bearings (which is, of course, why I called her) and simply tell her bye. Hang up. And so I keep driving.
By the time I've corrected my course, I'm about seven minutes late. Pretty lousy impression to make on attempting to enroll at a school. Yay.
It's around the point I pull into a parking spot at the school (after nominal difficulties doing even that) that I'm half relieved, half hating life.
I also want to kill the dumbfuck who decided that, for no apparent reason that I'm aware of, Olive should turn into Dunlap at a totally random intersection.
4. Right hand says: "I have a left hand? Seriously?" I guess I shouldn't be too shocked. I've always hated the college administrative process. It's half the thing that always discourages me. The financial aid "planning" went well, but had me wondering why the hell I had to drive there at all, since we didn't even sign anything. My designated financial aid guru there e-mailed me some links, crunched me some numbers, and we set up a phone appointment for the following Monday to do more stuff. She also took me back over to admissions to chat with my personal stalker admissions director so I could touch base with him on the rest of the enrollment process.
Course, when he scheduled this appointment for me, he neglected to tell me he wouldn't be there today. I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt and assume there's a good reason behind it. Really.
As a substitute, I'm faced with a co-worker of his who appears to be a real expert at the deer in headlights look and bobbing her head. Very helpful indeed, let me tell you.
Lucky for me, her cutesy, perfectly-coiffed blond coworker wanders by to save the day and actually has something akin to real answers to my questions... when she's not repeatedly "encouraging" me that January is a far better start date than February. Repeatedly. Because January is much better, which is largely her answer to everything.
As I leave the school parking lot, I am indeed hating life.
The additional part of this that sucks? My reason for selecting February initially was due to the fact that I've posted for a spot at work that could potentially (and drastically) alter my schedule. I don't know when I'll know if I have the position or not; they haven't even scheduled the interviews. Additionally, the school cannot seem to tell me when their classes usually run. This poses a rather sizable scheduling problem. If I knew what my work schedule would look like in the near future, I'd be great. If the school could tell me when classes ran, I'd be good. For the last several months, I've been batting zero on both sides.. I'm about ready to find an edged corner of some wall, somewhere, and pound my head against it. It's bound to be more productive at this rate.
5. Welcome home. So, I arrive home. I'm scot free, right? Wrong! By way of greeting, my cat hops up onto the sofa and pukes all down the front of it. At least he waited until I got my coffee made. Little bastard.
6. ARGH! Here I am, posting my frustrations in hopefully witty prose. Mom arrives home from shopping in time to check in and try to lighten the mood. She'd also forgotten the anomaly that is the Olive-->Dunlap conundrum, and feels bad. So okay, I'm not really pissed at her anymore... but the day has been such a god-damned DAY that the tears pop out in spite of me wishing fervently not to be a crybaby.
I bloody hate crying. It's pathetic, it makes me feel stupid, childish, and the whole soppy-eyes-and-runny-nose thing is just gross.
I get hugs, soothing, and all the nice "Mom" things from Mom since I had the breakdown moment in front of her, which is great... but I really just don't want any other human being on the planet to see me snuffling over a stupid, shitty day. Still, can't be rude and tell her to go away, but I also can't talk well when choked up. They call it "choked up" for a reason, you see.
The day's not over yet. To whatever powers govern this stupid mess, kindly leave me the fuck alone for the rest of the day.
Thank you.
So, as if being nervous over having my supposed big enrollment appointment at the Art Institute this afternoon wasn't enough, every random thing that wanted to throw me completely off-kilter just had to happen.
Let's look at the recipe for disaster, one ingredient at a time.
1. Waking before the alarm. Normally, this is a great thing, right? Not so much here, because it was one of those ever so annoying "wake up two minutes before the alarm goes off" things, which makes a girl feel cheated out of those last precious moments of sleep. It's mildly annoying.
2. For the first time in five years of owning the car, the battery dies. This morning. In my drive way. When I have to be to work in under thirty minutes.
Again, this could have been worse. It could have hit me on the way to work, or worse, on the way to my appointment. The problem here is that it disrupted my routine, almost made me late, and cost me one-hundred unforeseen dollars. These days, those surprise expenses ESPECIALLY blow.
This also sucks a little more than the norm because I had intended to squeeze in errands after work, before my appointment. I'm also perilously low on gas. Couldn't take care of either one, which left me without much in way of a substantial lunch to eat, and... I'm now even more perilously low on gas. Fuck.
3. Sense of direction blows. Frazzled memory malfunctions. I'm not a big fan of GPS systems since they don't always like to take me on routes I'm comfortable with attempting, so I usually map a place out ahead of time. I knew the way to the college. I left with thirty minutes ahead of me, figuring I'd have ample time to get there.
Nerves from traffic, nerves from the stupidity of the early part of the day, nerves from thinking I'd have to pay up stupid amounts of money to get things done... whatever it was, I missed my turn. I wind up going many blocks before thinking I'm probably way off course.
Mom's home, I call her for a direction check. She tells me I've gone too far.
"Um... Shit," I say.
So my helpful mother commences to snap and snarl at me about using the GPS, which I inform her is sitting on my shelf at home since I figured I knew the way. She gets angrier, so I abort dealing with more tension I don't need at a moment when I'm trying to get my bearings (which is, of course, why I called her) and simply tell her bye. Hang up. And so I keep driving.
By the time I've corrected my course, I'm about seven minutes late. Pretty lousy impression to make on attempting to enroll at a school. Yay.
It's around the point I pull into a parking spot at the school (after nominal difficulties doing even that) that I'm half relieved, half hating life.
I also want to kill the dumbfuck who decided that, for no apparent reason that I'm aware of, Olive should turn into Dunlap at a totally random intersection.
4. Right hand says: "I have a left hand? Seriously?" I guess I shouldn't be too shocked. I've always hated the college administrative process. It's half the thing that always discourages me. The financial aid "planning" went well, but had me wondering why the hell I had to drive there at all, since we didn't even sign anything. My designated financial aid guru there e-mailed me some links, crunched me some numbers, and we set up a phone appointment for the following Monday to do more stuff. She also took me back over to admissions to chat with my personal stalker admissions director so I could touch base with him on the rest of the enrollment process.
Course, when he scheduled this appointment for me, he neglected to tell me he wouldn't be there today. I'm trying to give the benefit of the doubt and assume there's a good reason behind it. Really.
As a substitute, I'm faced with a co-worker of his who appears to be a real expert at the deer in headlights look and bobbing her head. Very helpful indeed, let me tell you.
Lucky for me, her cutesy, perfectly-coiffed blond coworker wanders by to save the day and actually has something akin to real answers to my questions... when she's not repeatedly "encouraging" me that January is a far better start date than February. Repeatedly. Because January is much better, which is largely her answer to everything.
As I leave the school parking lot, I am indeed hating life.
The additional part of this that sucks? My reason for selecting February initially was due to the fact that I've posted for a spot at work that could potentially (and drastically) alter my schedule. I don't know when I'll know if I have the position or not; they haven't even scheduled the interviews. Additionally, the school cannot seem to tell me when their classes usually run. This poses a rather sizable scheduling problem. If I knew what my work schedule would look like in the near future, I'd be great. If the school could tell me when classes ran, I'd be good. For the last several months, I've been batting zero on both sides.. I'm about ready to find an edged corner of some wall, somewhere, and pound my head against it. It's bound to be more productive at this rate.
5. Welcome home. So, I arrive home. I'm scot free, right? Wrong! By way of greeting, my cat hops up onto the sofa and pukes all down the front of it. At least he waited until I got my coffee made. Little bastard.
6. ARGH! Here I am, posting my frustrations in hopefully witty prose. Mom arrives home from shopping in time to check in and try to lighten the mood. She'd also forgotten the anomaly that is the Olive-->Dunlap conundrum, and feels bad. So okay, I'm not really pissed at her anymore... but the day has been such a god-damned DAY that the tears pop out in spite of me wishing fervently not to be a crybaby.
I bloody hate crying. It's pathetic, it makes me feel stupid, childish, and the whole soppy-eyes-and-runny-nose thing is just gross.
I get hugs, soothing, and all the nice "Mom" things from Mom since I had the breakdown moment in front of her, which is great... but I really just don't want any other human being on the planet to see me snuffling over a stupid, shitty day. Still, can't be rude and tell her to go away, but I also can't talk well when choked up. They call it "choked up" for a reason, you see.
The day's not over yet. To whatever powers govern this stupid mess, kindly leave me the fuck alone for the rest of the day.
Thank you.