A Few Petty Disappointments

Today’s post is long and on the negative side, so there’s your warning.

I swear that there is some sort of cosmic alarm out there in the universe that sounds whenever I am about to finally have something, no matter how small, go my way. This week, and especially yesterday, is a prime example.

I need new underwear.

Yes, I said it, it’s out there, deal with it.

All of my underwear is a minimum of six years old and they are all falling apart. And you know what? Underwear is freaking expensive! Especially when your lower body parts are humungous like mine. I FINALLY managed to scrape up the moolah for new undercrackers and got them ordered. They came in last Thursday – not Thanksgiving Day Thursday, but the Thursday before that. Now, we have a PO box because a few years back some little gang of buttheads with nothing better to do with their time (like, oh…getting a JOB) went around stealing mail out of the mailboxes on our road. Sis and Les was targeted, so no more mailbox. Our local post office is only open Monday-Friday from 9am-4:30pm. I work Monday-Friday 7 or 8am-4 or 5pm. They are not open at all anymore on Saturdays. So, I cannot get to the post office to pick up packages that are too big to fit in our PO box. I checked the PO box on Thursday night to see if they were able to squish it in there, and it wasn’t there. I grabbed the mail that was there, hoping on Monday that they would then squish it in there. How big could the bundle be? It is five pairs of underpants in a soft envelope. I know they are big, put it’s not like they are tarp sized. I asked Sissy to pick them up for me on her way home from Portland. She said she would. She didn’t. She was home all day on Tuesday-Thursday, so I asked her everyday if she would PLEASE pick them up for me. She said she would. She didn’t.

I worked on turkey day and Sis and Mom convinced me to drive down to Mom’s after work, spend the night, then go back home on Friday evening since I had that day off. I did, and on Friday Mom and I had a nice time going to the Fabric Depot (where I bought some awesome fabric to make her a tote bag – more on that later) and the new Goodwill store by her house. I didn’t get to go to the cross stitch shop downtown because there was a parade and the Portland Christmas Tree lighting ceremony all right there nearby. No thank you. I had a brain storm and called our local post office and asked the gal there if the package with my unders in it could be stuffed in our box. She said YEP and I was all smiles. I could now pick them up anytime on my way home. And I did. I was so excited to get the package open (I’m a cheap date and easy to please, obviously). I pulled out a pair, and you probably could have put two of me in these enormous, awe-inspiring, colossal underpants. Jeezzy creezzy. So, those will have to go back. No new underwear.

Disappointment number one.

I have also been trying – unsuccessfully – to save up for a Kindle Fire. I have one languishing on my Amazon wish list; since this was the biggest shopping weekend of the year, I thought I would look around to see if they were on QVC or HSN, because they offer the ability to make payments. While I was working on Thursday I went online and discovered that QVC had them on sale, with free shipping, and you could make six payments of about $55 each. Now that I could swing! I was really excited but hesitant (as usual) because I wanted to be sure I could actually swing it. The offer was good through Saturday, so I decided to sleep on it. I couldn’t access the Internet on Friday because I was down at Mom’s, so I got online as soon as I got up Saturday. The deal was gone. Oh, the one I wanted was still available, but no free shipping, and now only five payments. I was bummed that it wasn’t as good of a deal, but I decided to go for it anyway. I got halfway through the purchasing process, when I got an error message saying that I would need to call customer service to complete the transaction. So I called their automated ordering number. Turns out they are all sold out and are on a waitlist status. That meant that IF they got stock in again within the next 45 days, they would ship it to me and then bill me when it shipped. Well, that won’t work for me. The way my budget is set up and how I get paid, I have to be able to know exactly when that bill was going to go through. CRAP. No Kindle for me.

Disappointment number 2.

We have a storm rolling in that is dumping tons of rain and the temperatures will be dropping below freezing for our highs for the next several days, and as a result we will probably get snow and lots of ice. Les discovered that the covers we had for the outside water faucets and for the house vents are all missing, so he needed to go to Home Depot to get more. He could drive himself, but he won’t; plus, he has no money (Sis needs the bank card with her in order to deposit her paycheck and buy groceries down in Oregon). So, I volunteered to take him and help him shop (and obviously purchase) these items. Before we left, we tracked down Jim and asked him to please go get a few bales of straw for the animals, so we could be sure they would be warm and dry during the storm. Surprise, surprise, Jim is broke and didn’t have any money even though he just got his check less than a week ago. He can’t afford the $15 for the straw. So I told him I would pay for them if he would please use his shiny brand-new pickup truck to go pick them up for me (oh yes, did I not mention the new truck? And the new 33 ft trailer he bought? And the fact that he contributes zilch to our house that he uses like a free hotel? No? Well, consider it mentioned now).

Disappointment number 3.

We went to Home Depot and got two small bags of Styrofoam covers. $45 smackeroos.

Disappointment number 4.

I was hungry and so was Les, so we stopped by Carl’s Jr. on the way home. He just wanted a small cheeseburger, and I ordered my favorite Western Bacon Cheeseburger, the kind with BBQ sauce and onion rings on it. Couldn’t wait to get that burger home and inhale it!

We got home, I gave Les his burger and he started eating, but the dogs were hounding me for dinner so I took a half hour and got all the animals fed before I ate. I knew that my burger would be pretty much cold by now but it would still be awesome. I got something to drink and some chips, sat down in the recliner to watch some Sons of Anarchy with Les, unwrapped my burger and found…his cold, slightly soggy, small cheeseburger. Now, Les knew as soon as he unwrapped the burger I handed him that it wasn’t his. The onion rings and bacon would have clued him in before he even took one bite. But did he say anything? Nope. Just chowed down on it without a word.

Disappointment number 5.

Now, I know these are petty things to be disappointed about. I own that. I tried really hard to just let them all slide, even the Kindle thing. I figure there will probably be even better sales the closer we get to Xmas, or even after, but I’ve waited so long for one. And to be disappointed over a hamburger is silly, but when you stack all of these things together, it just makes me kind of...sad.

**WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH** THIS IS AN ALERT OF THE “THINGS ARE GOING HEATHER’S WAY” SYSTEM. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. SHE IS ABOUT TO FINALLY HAVE ONE OR TWO THINGS GO HER WAY, AND IF THIS HAPPENS THE EARTH WILL CRASH INTO THE SUN, AND THAT’S NO GOOD FOR ANYBODY. COSMIC INTERFERANCE TO COMMENSE IN THREE…TWO…ONE…

Although, I did buy some lottery tickets on Saturday. Maybe I should check those out…

** WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH WAH** THIS IS AN ALERT OF THE “THINGS ARE GOING HEATHER’S WAY” SYSTEM. THIS IS NOT A DRILL…

TTFN.