Inevitabilities

Grandgirls with their witch dummy from this past weekend. This was the first time they'd ever made a halloween dummy. Let it never be said that I don't pass on some quite valuable life skills to future generations.

I have a Murphy's Law kind of life. If the lid is going to fall off the salt shaker, it will be when I'm using it. If a tire is going to blow on my car, it will be during an ice storm when I don't have my cell phone. I've lived long enough that this is now acceptable, and I don't sweat it.

I spent yesterday running around doing a laundry list of annoying errands accompanied by Pap who is still crippled from his surgery so it took twice as long to do everything. No big deal, one of the errands was to the doctor to get his helpless bandage off and a walking cast on. Yay! Things were going smoothly, aside from the pounding headache that also kept me company all day. Just as we were wrapping things up by dropping his car at the shop to have the gas tank replaced it started to sprinkle. Still not a big deal, I had plenty of time to race home and put the cover on my leaky roofed car.

I'd piddled around doing house chores, checking mail... all that stuff you have to do because you're a grown up, while it started raining buckets outside. I took a bath and settled into the library with a book I'm editing and then realized I had one cigarette.

There are addictions, and then there is my addiction. Before I smoked I chewed my nails, before that I sucked my thumb. I'm a perfectly rational human being until I run out of cigarettes. I was wearing this very tacky t-shirt I've been sleeping in since I got it 10 years ago, it has one of those torsos in a bikini painted on the front, and the sweat pants I've also had for 10 years that are paint splattered, bleach spotted and overall raggedy. These are my comfort clothes, big, baggy, stretched out, non-fashionable - but comfortable. I wasn't thinking about what I was wearing while I contemplated my options. Mistake number one.

With Pap's car in the shop and mine under cover because of the rain, I had to wait for Princess to get home so I could use her car. She of course picked this night to stop on the way home for a capachino with friends, so by the time she did stroll in, even the cats were in hiding. I snatched her keys out of her hand, threw on some shoes (mistake number two) that were laying by the door and raced down the post midnight, dark, abandoned streets to our convenience store. When I arrived the store was empty, the clerk fetched my sanity sticks, I went to pay her and realized that I had no cash in my wallet and the checkbook was laying on the desk at home. Knowing that the bottom of my purse is always littered with misc. receipts, random earrings and change, I decided to dig around in there to get the necessary amount instead of going home for the checkbook. Mistake number three.

While I shuffled and dug and piled change on the counter people were wandering in, half way to reaching my goal a line had formed behind me, cranky people tapping their foot and sighing loudly. Eighty cents from completing my transaction I realized I'd emptied the well. I was frantically searching pockets of the purse, between the folds of my wallet, and under the flaps of my day planner, when a neatly manicured, male hand dropped a dollar on the counter. "That ought to cover it." The masculine voice said from beside me. This was when I knew that Murphy's Law was written just for me.

I never leave the house without my hair done and make up on. I'm goofy, but I love clothes and I'm normally very organized. I hold an elected position in town (the day job), so EVERYONE knows me, which is why I generally make a point to appear put together. I've been attempting to get a small business loan for my publishing company from our one and only bank. Most of the paperwork is done, it wasn't a cut and dried thing because it is a privately owned bank, the board can take any risk they want, turn down any project they want. The board was already a little nervous about my loan because publishing is a tough business, and we're so new. But, most recently they'd been leaning in my direction by virtue of my reputation as a professional.

The good samaritan was the president of that board. When I looked up to thank him, he was looking at me the same way you'd regard a roach in your tuna sandwich. He did the scan and scowl from my head to my feet... upon which were Princesses monkey slippers - the ones with the cute monkey faces slightly covered by their cute monkey middle fingers. That's when I remembered I also wasn't wearing a bra, and I was buying cigarettes. Oh well, our little company doesn't really need the debt.