I should have stayed in bed

I'm having one of those crappy days that could improve only with medication. First, I woke up with a headache, but since it went away soon after, I decided I would get some mowing done before the rain they were predicting for the weekend moved in. So I got dressed in jeans and long-sleeved shirt -- delicate and fair skin, remember? -- and fed the dogs. While my back was turned, one of them peed on the kitchen floor. Not because he had to pee -- that would have been okay. No, he did it because he wanted to, because that's the precise spot where one of the other dogs always eats his meals.

Since I didn't know which one was responsible, I kenneled all but one of the males, went out to mow, and the sky opened up. Not just rain, but torrents of rain. I went back inside, checked e-mail and disconnected the non-vital electrical stuff (our house and my office have gotten hit by lightning more times than I want to count). There I discovered that the one unkenneled dog had peed in the living room. Off he went to time-out.

So the morning wasn't going well. I got online to pay a couple of bills. One wouldn't accept my account number. Seems the actual account number and the account number on the bill are two different numbers. I'd never paid the other online before, so I had to set up a bill-pay account, which took about twenty minutes, and then, when the end was in sight, they asked for the three little numbers on the back of my credit card. The credit card that was in my checkbook that was with my husband who wasn't picking up his cell phone.

Okay. My blood pressure was rising, and deep breathing wasn't helping. Next, I thought, I would do something easy -- transfer money from checking to savings online. Easy? It took about fifteen minutes, because every time I typed in a command, I'd get this stupid Microsoft Internet Explorer pop-up asking, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

Grrrr.

Transfer finally made (but two other bills unpaid) and smelling of bleach, which gives me a headache but does a great job cleaning urine stink, I decided to work off a little excess irritation by vacuuming while everyone was otherwise occupied. The dogs hate the vacuum. One tries to eat it, one wants to wrestle with it, and the others run in frantic circles trying to get away from it. So I got the whole house vacuumed -- no easy task with all the dog hair.

Then I took a few minutes to return a call to UPS. They'd left a message (at nearly nine o'clock last night -- too late for business calls!) asking for directions to the house so they could deliver a package. They gave a huge string of numbers and letters that I was supposed to repeat to the nice lady on the phone this morning.

Only the nice lady couldn't find any record of any package being delivered to me -- not under the tracking number, not under my address, not under my name. Not encouraging.

My head no longer felt as if it was going to explode, so I let four of the five detainees out of custody. Three minutes -- no shit, that's all they lasted before two of them had peed (or one of them did it twice) on a piece of seldom-used exercise equipment shoved into a corner of the newly-vacuumed dining room. Back into time-out they all went, and out again with the bleach, rubber gloves and paper towels.

Once that was cleaned, I decided to move the equipment into storage. One easy adjustment, the instructions said, and it would fold almost flat. I made the one adjustment -- it wasn't so easy, either; I was straddling the machine, bracing it on both sides with my feet, and pulling on a heavy-duty stretchy band with all my might. Okay, it was adjusted; I pushed the top part down, let go -- and the damn thing sprang back and the metal bar cracked me across the top of the head.

I cried. Stood there and cried. Then laughed. Then cried some more.

Yes, I am officially insane.

So . . . how was your day? Rachel12:46 PM