It was one of those days – no it was one of those weeks.You know the kind. The kind when nothing goes your way, no matter how well you plan.
I opened the refrigerator door, pulled out the bottle of pills I am to take every day, Carefully, I unscrewed the lid, tipped it to shake out one pill and the bottle fell to the floor. Pills scattered every where. Lots of pills; I had just renewed my prescription.
Down on my hands and knees I practiced my pincer grip on the itsy-bitsy pills, peered under the refrigerator to see how many had slid under there and carefully swept out a couple with a slip of paper.
In preparation for the weekend, I decided I to stop at the ATM machine for some magic money. It is magic isn’t it? … wave your hand over the keyboard and it the exact amount you want magically appears.
There was no magic in my life that day.
It was one of those days.
I carefully aligned my debit card in the correct direction and tapped in my secret code. The machine took my information, thought about it a couple nanoseconds and then insisted it was too early in the morning for it to be ready to give me even the paltry amount I requested.
I could give it all the cash I wanted to give, but it was not going to share with me.
I drove around to the early morning teller who is locked securely in her windowed box of a room with pneumatic tubes that suck up cash and spit out receipts, or suck up requests and spit back cash.
While I waited, I wrote a modest check for the amount I had asked of the ATM. When I saw the tube bullet zip down to the car in front of me, I knew it would soon be my turn.
They sent the tube back to the teller in the glass cage.
I waited.
The tube came back. The people in the car had a conversation with the face on the tiny screen.
They sent the tube back to the teller.
I pulled out some paper work I had brought that needed my attention. I did the paper work.
The tube made another round between car people and bank person and another …. and another.
I looked at my watch. Forget about it. I would try again later. I did not have time to discover the ending on that saga. None of the cars in the other lines were moving. I backed up and went on to work
At work, a family returned wondering again what happened to their pictures. I had already been asked that question earlier in the week and had not found the pictures. I had looked in one, two, three, four, five, six different possible and impossible places where the pictures might be. I asked the next person who handled the pictures. No picture found.
The pictures had disappeared.
I looked again. Still nothing. I considered an alternative way to address the picture issue when another staff member went to the one of the same impossible places for someone to put a picture … and found it.
Of course.
Then there is lunch. I thought, I deserved a break today. So for the first time in years, I ordered a chocolate shake.
“We don’t have any today. We are out of chocolate. All we have is vanilla.”
But my taste buds want chocolate.
“We have no chocolate today.”
I ordered vanilla. It didn’t taste a bit like chocolate.
I would have gone home for some peace and quiet, but the quiet had disappeared. And I initiated the noise the day my husband sat idly waiting for warmer weather to finish a project.
“While you are waiting, perhaps you could go check that spot under the eaves where the water leaks. Maybe you could repair it,” I suggested
He went. He checked. He pulled off wood, and shingles and tar paper and plywood. The little problem had many hidden, larger problems.
The roofers arrived early in the morning eager to tear into our roof. They stomped over the roof shaking the rafters. The air compressor surged with energy, bundles of shingles thumped into place. No, going home would not provide the needed peace and quiet.
I stayed at work and was just glad it also wasn’t one of those days when I look down at my shoes and realize that in my rush out the door, I had slid one foot into a blue loafer and the other into a black tie-less shoe.
It may have been one of those weeks, but at least my shoes matched.
(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times and author of “Twenty Gallons of Milk.” Email her at joanh@everybody.org)