No promises!: Here I am again...

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Here I am again...

Cam managed to stay out of trouble today-he was very happy to inform me that he did NOT have to move his clip. He's just getting out of the bath and is about to do his nightly 20 minutes of reading, so this will probably be a blog interrupted at some point in the near future. That's ok, though. Dear lord, this child is a source of endless amusement. He came in, fresh out of the tub and in a voice just dripping with pride says, "Look! I can fit two fingers in my belly button!" He points two fingers like a gun, and jabs them into his navel. ...sigh... This is the child that will support me in my old age. Good thing I have that 401k....

I keep meaning to tell you about MY first day of school experience...and then finding something else to do. Funny. Here's the tale of my first day of school this year:

I get up and get ready, get Cam up and ready, and we head out the door to go to the bus stop. Barb calls to say that she'll be a little later than expected because there were no other buses in line for gas so she was going to stop. No problem-I ran into the Tom Thumb to get a Diet Coke (aka "Nectar of the Gods"). When I stepped out of the store, I saw my back passenger tire was a little low...hey, no prob, right? Tom Thumb has free water and air! I pulled over to the air pump, checked with Barb to make sure I had time, and checked my tire pressure. It was like 15 psi. Doh! I put the air hose on and hummed to myself for a while...checked the pressure again...wait, the hell? It was like 12. Um...shouldn't it be going UP? I put the hose back on for a little while, and checked again-it was still going down. I stopped right there, called my boss at school to let him know I was going to the Wal Mart down the street to get my tire fixed and would be late.

I dropped Cam off at the bus and pulled into Wal Mart at 7:20....I pulled around to the side of the building to see that I would EIGHTH in line at the Tire & Lube place...great. I was processed (according to my ticket) at 7:28. That's AM, folks. Turns out that all the cars in front of me-except one-were there for tire work. I walked into Wal Mart with cash in my purse, some spendable money in my bank account, AND with a birthday gift card. I wandered around, but couldn't find anything that particularly jumped out at me. I tried, too! I looked in the books, I looked in the school supplies, I looked in the movies and music, and I looked in the shoe department. I found my Dad on one of these sweeps through the store. He was painting.

About an hour and a half later I wandered back to the Tire center, and peeked into the bay to see if they'd started on my van. Ha! I saw a green van, but it was far too clean to be mine. I looked out in the lot and saw my dirty van sitting there. ...sigh... I sat down in the waiting room there, and...well, waited. I played solitaire on my PDA for at least 15 minutes. I lost every game, for those of you keeping score. I put that away and tried to still look busy enough that the older lady in there with me wouldn't try to talk. We wouldn't have been able to hear each other over the two enormous soda machines and the coffee pot in there anyway. She was 2 cars ahead of me, and had about 1/100 the patience. She got up to ask the poor lady at the counter how long it would be every 10 minutes or so. She was a short little lady...probably in her mid-to-late 60s. She kept kneeling on the chairs looking out into the bay to see what was taking so damn long, and she looked like a kid peeking out the window of the house for the ice cream truck.

I sat in the waiting room for a total of about 25 minutes. Out of boredom, I did another lap around the store, studiously ignoring the grocery side. As hard as it was to find something on the GM side, I knew I would have no trouble finding something to buy on the food side. I double-checked the shoe aisle, the toy section, and school supplies again. I actually entered the craft section, but emerged unscathed and untethered by yet another project I'll start wholeheartedly and then leave to fret about, unfinished forever. Ahem, I digress. I ran into Dad again and we chatted for a bit. I poked through the Electronics section again, and found a great shoulder bag for my laptop. Ha! FOUND something!

Around 10:30 I wandered back to the Tire place, and realized with much dismay that the older, impatient lady was STILL there, and my van was STILL parked in the lot. Damn it, people! I sat for a little while, but got tired of the woman griping so I left. I went back to the book section, determined to find something that would keep me occupied for at least another hour. Those of you that don't know me, here's a little info about my reading habits... I'll read nearly anything. I don't read much sci-fi or medical drama, but I will when I have to. My favorite author is Stephen King...I made the horrific mistake of reading It on a Girl Scout camp out in 6th grade. I'm 31 years old and will swear on a stack of Bibles that to this date it is STILL the scariest book I have ever in my life read. Horrifying!! The movie sucked, so please do not base your opinion of the story on that crapfest. Tim Curry (Pennywise the Clown....shudder) was the best part of that movie-everyone else pretty much sucked. Ahem...digressed again. Anyway, I love me some Stephen King. I enjoy Ann Rice, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Agatha Christie-she was an amazing author. Thanks to a local used bookstore I've started reading some Dorothy Gillman books, the Ms. Polifax series. Lillian Jackson Braun's Cat Who series is nice, too. They're cute and short-I can polish one off in about 3 hours. Oh, that's another thing. If I'm enjoying a book, I tend to devour it more than read it. I love to re-read a book, too. I know a lot of people that find a book quite useless once they've already read it. Not me! I love books.

Anyway, I went in with an open mind. ANYTHING to look busy and keep my mind off this wait. I came out with Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris. I'd never heard of her or of the book, but really-I didn't care. It kept me quite occupied until they released my van at 12:14. That's PM, folks. They fixed my tire in 4.5 hours. Whoo hoo! Nobody should have to stay in a Wal Mart that long, folks, unless he or she is getting paid. I finished the book later that evening and am thinking about a book review...if I can keep my eyes open long enough to type more. I've already written a book today, so I may hold off on the review until tomorrow.

I left there and just went to work...it was too late to go to school. I went up for rehearsal that afternoon, though. I made everyone ooh and aah over my new tire, too. The flat repair was like $12...but that's 4.5 hours I'll never get back!! My time is worth more than that, thanks. At least I got a computer bag and a new book out of it, though. Hopefully the rest of the school year will be a little less interesting.

posted by Jen @ 7:24 PM

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