A Bad Day

Last week I had a bad day. Another one of THOSE.

It started with dog vomit. A wonderful way to wake up in the morning, let me tell you. Then, after driving kids to school, I found the internet was down. BAD. I sicced my husband on fixing the internet, and I cleaned up the dog vomit. I got the good end of the deal, as it turned out.

After hearing my husband talking to a thousand different people in India to see how to fix our internet service, I left to take care of getting the emissions and safety inspection done for my car. I had delayed this to the last week of the month for a lot of reasons none of which were good enough because I had four days left to get my car registered, and both tests failed. NOW I had to get my car fixed, take it BACK to the emissions place, and try again.

Grumbling over the failed tests, I went to Sam's club to pick up contact lenses, and return my tainted peanut butter and cracker snacks. It's a great thing we didn't need our 72 hour kits this year, or we wouldn't have died of earthquake or flood, we'd have died of salmonella poisoning from eating our peanut butter and cracker snacks. On my way home, my cell phone rang. It really never does, so I was surprised, and grabbed my purse to scramble for my phone. I didn't see the red light. I missed it completely. There may as well not have been a red light there. I DID see the police car flashing his lights at me, and pulled over. I was surprised because I couldn't imagine WHY he'd be pulling me over! I received a stern warning, and was feeling pretty low and stupid as I CAREFULLY drove home to meet the piano repair man.

The digital piano getting repaired was the one good part of my day. The piano is old enough now that I can't get parts for it anymore, and the volume control was broken. I was very grateful to get my piano back. While the repair man was working, the phone rang. It was the nurse who gave me my mammogram a couple of weeks ago. She politely informed me that they "found something" and I needed to get more tests and meet with someone right away. She scheduled me for the next day, and wished me a good day.

The floor fell out from under me.

I said goodbye to the repair man, and started to shake. I KNEW in my head that it was probably going to be fine, and that there was no real reason to worry, but the rest of me wasn't buying it. I called to tell my husband, and started to cry, then talked to my best friend, and cried some more. I would have logged online somewhere to forget about things, but the internet was down, and so I puttered around the house doing nothing effective until the kids got home from school.

The dog threw up again around four in the afternoon.

Several days later, I can happily say that everything has been resolved. The dog is better. It took five days, but the internet is working again. After buying parts at Checker only to find out they were the wrong parts, and having to take the car in to the mechanic ANYWAY, then going BACK to the emissions place, I am now legal to drive my car, and have sworn away from ever trying to answer the cell phone while driving. I'm a reformed citizen. I drove all the way out to the big downtown hospital the next day. It took me half an hour to get there. It took them ten minutes to test me. They solemnly informed me that I had "fibrocystic changes", small benign calcified lumps in my breats. I knew I had those ten years ago, it's why I got a baseline mammogram five years ago. I drove all that way, and had all the stress and crying so they could tell me something I already knew. The fallout from the really bad day has left me with a cold, but other than that all is well again.

I noticed that the last time I wrote about a REALLY bad day, it was the same time of year, and it also involved vomit. I find this trend strange and disturbing, but I suppose if it continues, then I have a year before I have to endure another one. I hope.