Really Long. For your amusement. Really!

It is not all Grand babies and rocking. I started not to post this but thought I would over share anyway. It is long. I can totally laugh about the day now.

The bad day. The day started with waiting. I hate to wait. I am a list maker. I make a list and do it so my day is not wasted. Waiting is wasted time. I had the trailer loaded with soaked building material ready to take to the dump. The dump opens at 7:30. It is 5. I am packed and ready to go and didn't want to get insulation on me so didn't work on the house. I read days of OH and started to post. Did not get the post complete. Made it to the dump but I was feeling anxious over waiting to do it. It was $60 to dump my trash. I was thinking it would be $25. Took most of my extra cash. A bit more anxiety. DW had found a new to us refrigerator and it was only 45 min out of my way. My plan was to leave from the dump and head home via refrigerator. Come to find out the deal was not complete so I waited until it was finalized. I disconnected the trailer because the trailer is 16 ft long and I do not like to drive with it in traffic. I went to town to price materials and pick up some items from the grocery store. And returned and waited some more.

Side note. I have anxiety about leaving my house. I do ok at the house, at the shop in the woods and at my DS#1 house. Everywhere else I have anxiety about not being at home. When I go out. I make a list. I follow the list. I go home. If it is on the list ... less anxiety. Not on the list. Not done. I could tell by 8am that this was a not on the list but you have to do it anyway sort of day. Anxiety day big boy buck up and deal with it. More waiting.

Finally the deal was done and I headed that direction. I missed a turn. Added 30 min to the trip. At this point I entered the intended address into my phone and picked a route. Siri picked the shortest route. Just before I got there I stopped at dollar general to use the bathroom. The bathroom was closed. Anxiety bumped up to low levels of panic because the seller would not want some stranger from the internet in their bathroom. But I followed the route that Siri was giving me. I was in the very back of the back woods. Why didn't I just stop and pee in the woods? Not on the list. Get a text from DW. Have to stop to read it. Basically text says if I had gone the long route Siri would have taken me by a real nice bathroom and a better road. I find the house. The refrigerator is on the front porch. The porch does not feel like it will support a refrigerator. No plug to see if it works. It is dinged up. The handles are off of it. It smells bad. But this was on my list so I proceeded to load it up and realized I forgot plywood to cover the ramp so the dolly would roll easier. The lady took my money and left. There was a man in the house that was going to help me load. This was the kind of guy that made me feel like I needed to keep my eye for the closest route of egress. He said he could back the trailer up where we could just roll it off the porch onto the trailer. I said go ahead. He got in my van. Then got out of my van. Next thing I heard was a chainsaw. I panicked. I reached for my phone. It was in the van. I am thinking great. He has a chainsaw walking toward me. I am thinking kidney removal. I don't have my phone and I can't run because peeing in the woods was not on my ******g list. At the last moment he turns to the other side of the van and cuts a stump down that was close to the tires and path he wanted to take. So we get refrigerator loaded. Strapped with 3 straps. At this point I ask to use the bathroom. I quickly realize the refrigerator was the most valuable thing in sight except for the chainsaw.

I get in my van. I leave with both kidneys intact and head home. It had been years since I was on this road and as towns do it had changed. My route took a right. Looked in the mirror and saw the refrigerator tip a little. I am good at tying down loads so I knew it just needed a little tightening. pulled into a church parking lot. tighten my load and got back in the van. Nothing. No start. A little click but other than that Nothing. Look around. Nothing but the church building. And a sign that was flashing something along the lines of being without Jesus. I thought having Jesus in the van would help about now. Ok, I do wonders with wood and babies but cars are WAY out of my field of knowledge. I work on them and then pay someone to fix the original problem and the one I created. We buy later model cars so I do not have to work on them. The van is DS#1 legally but we had agreed on a price just have not gotten title yet. Over 200K miles on it but it drives smooth and besides I was just going to drive it to the lumber company and around the shop in the woods and occasionally to the house. Never intended to be driven so far from a mechanic. Anxiety is now completely past anxiety and past the first stage of panic. I call my DW. She talks me down a little. Enough for me to formulate a plan. She said take an Ativan. I left them at the house because I was planning on going back. She said are you kidding me? I said I was not kidding. I checked for loose connections and took the battery leads off brushed them a bit and reconnected them. In the process of putting my phone up I pocket dialed my brother. A former truck driver. He gave some good advise and talking with my big brother calmed me a bit. I put the battery back together and got back in the van. It STARTED. Yeah!!

I drive back to the most recent town because I thought I could find a walmart for a battery. I found better than walmart I found a NAPPA auto parts store with a 4 bay mechanics garage. I parked. I left it running. I put it into park. All of the gages went to zero and all of the dash lights go out. But it is still running. I go inside tell the sales guy my van woes and he said pull it up to the first bay. I go out to my running van with the tightly secured refrigerator on the 16 ft trailer that is kind of in the way, to find my van had locked me out when I closed the door. The mechanic said he could get in it. Got in it. Listened to my problem list with the van and quickly diagnosed that it needed an alternator. And possibly a battery. They stopped everything to get me up and running again. I owe them. More than the bill. Go to pay the bill. they are having trouble charging the old battery . No problem $350 for an alternator. I even spring the extra $30 for a better than average battery. No problem I have $1300 available left on my credit card and, of course on today, the card is partially declined. Turns out I mixed up the credit limits of another card. So it would pay 300 of a 500 bill. I laughed. The sales guy found no such humor. I told him this has been the type of day to get my credit card declined. (I have never had one declined) Checked my wallet and found a card I rarely use except on amazon. Paid my bill.

Got on the road for the 1 1/2 hour drive home. The crooked road. I knew some of it was bad but I had not realized how bad until I got to the section of road that I knew was bad. I missed 2 turns. One of them with me looking at the sign pointing the right way. The other with Siri beeping so not to interrupt the phone conversation with my brother checking back on me to see if I was back on the road. Finally got home with an unrelenting anxiety level. I took my night time ativan and washed it down with what I thought was an oz of alcohol, twice. I had broken my shot glass the day before so I estimated an oz from the bottle. I did not estimate correctly. I got too much. room spinning to much. Again I laughed at this crazy, crazy day.

And for the fridge. It does not work.

It all worked out in the end. I took my trash to the dump, did some shopping, picked up a great priced bargain for my wife, peed, became thankful for my intact kidneys, got my alternator fixed faster than I could have anywhere else and got extra points for using a credit card I normally leave at home. I got home to my DW in one piece. I have a wonderful bed to spin in after having a method of pain control that took away my pain. I woke feeling refreshed and ready to rock.

More later, David

Oh my!!!!! A day like that and I would take a swig from the bottle too! Yikes!

Lordy Dave, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I can so relate to the anxiety of all this. And of course that refrigerator does not work.

Al this reminds me of a 3 day ski trip we took years ago during which our car was towed 3 times; once out of a field after we skidded off the winding road. We were young and we all laughed.

DH and I imitate Siri's voice in the car saying inane things like "in one point four miles, turn right. stop at the gas station. Purchase and eat chocolate".

Glad you averted the chain saw. Diane S

Is it wrong that I really enjoyed this? I am glad you had a soft landing at home!

Your list paper should have "pee in the woods" pre-printed on it.

I had contact anxiety just reading this! Poor you!

Finally clicked on this thread, read it and am now screaming out loud with laughter!

It was SO WORTH YOUR TIME TO TYPE ALL THIS OUT. If Reader's Digest had a regular column called "Day from Hell," they'd accept and publish this write-up of your Day from Hell.

Sorry for your pain. But thank you for the end-of-day laughter!

P.S. And this is why on the second Monday God created comedy. :)

I don't have anxiety, but my anger at the world and everyone else would have kicked into gear during a day like that!

Oh, I LOVED your post!

I am very sorry your anxiety went into overload, but your recount of the day - especially inbred Bubba Joe coming at you like some creeper from Deliverance to harvest your kidneys with a friggin' chain saw made me just gleeful! Such a wonderful, good natured recount of your terrible, horrible, no good day! (When you start reading to your grandbabies, you will understand the reference!)

Glad you ended up in a good place at the end of the day.