Sometimes it Just isn't Your Day

This morning I was actually RELIEVED for the alarm to sound. That's never good on a Monday. I'm not sure what I ate or drank (or didn't eat or drink) before bedtime last night that led to this, but I had entire night packed full of the most awful dreams. I kept waking up and I would go back to sleep thinking that waking up would solve the problem...but no. I'd have more dreams.

I went to the shower to discover that the shower head which has been working fine since I fixed it on Saturday...has in fact, unfixed itself. I didn't have time to mess with it, so I tossed all my showering stuff in a towel and carted it to the other bathroom. It's been a while since I used that shower and it turns out that the water actually pelts you as it comes out of the shower head. I did not appreciate the pelting of hot water after so little sleep.

The day at work actually went fairly well - another scary thing. Whenever you have a Monday (when you're down two people at work, no less) that is actually GOOD during office hours and BAD off the clock? That's not a good sign.

Anyway, so I came home, decided for once in my life to exercise early instead of after I'd completely run out of energy, changed into my workout clothes, climbed onto the elliptical...

Batteries are dead.

Fortunately I remembered that I also had pictures to drop off to the photo lab, so I changed back into the non-workout clothes, drove to Wal mart, dropped off the pictures with 40 minutes to spare before they stopped processing for the night and came home. I figured I would go back in an hour, pick up the pictures along with the batteries, come home, exercise, and still be done early. While I waited, I redid a scrapbook page (finished it over the weekend...a baby page...and today I got the birth announcement in the mail, so of course I had to include that), and then back in the car I went.

I arrived at the photo lab to find the "Here's the envelopes if you want to drop off pictures" display out and the lab guy cleaning equipment at the back. I've played this game before. I re-read the posted hours which said "lab open until 9 pm, last drop off of pictures one hour before closing." So I stood there. I'm fairly certain he saw me a couple of times before he actually acknowledged me. He hunted around for my pictures, couldn't find them, hunted some more...finally discovered my request ticket on the printer. With no apology, he told me that they hadn't "come through" until he'd shut down the equipment for the night. When had I come in? I said, "An hour ago...and I omitted the part where he watched me put in my order at the little computer.

I guess I'll see what kind of fighting mood I'm in tomorrow. I have my "this is not a receipt" that clearly states my photos will be ready for pickup at 8:21 pm TODAY. So, Cara, if you're reading this, THIS is why you don't have an email full of pictures from game night. They're not DONE YET.

At this point, I had to wonder...why do I continue to put myself through the Wal Mart hassle?

I used to take all my pictures to CVS, but I began to have problems with them chopping off random (and sometimes necessary) parts of my pictures, so I stopped.

Then I went to Wal-Greens, but the last straw there was at Christmas when they printed all 125 of my Christmas card pictures in some really bad quality and then gave me a bit of hassle over fixing them at no charge.

So for all of this, I have concluded that I will welcome the arrival of Meijer in town...perhaps I will enjoy their photo lab?

And just as a bit of polish on my evening...I walked out into the parking lot, still rather steamed over my picture fiasco, strolled confidently toward my car, and as I nearly approached the driver's door, I hit the remote lock...and definitely heard the car BEHIND me unlock. Woops. I was headed straight for my car's twin. I did an embarrassing about-face and slid into my car before anyone (that I could see) saw me.

Perhaps tomorrow will be better?