The Journey To Buy A 44 oz Diet Coke Begins With A Single Step

Or so you'd think, huh? That all Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has to do is start her feet moving, grab her purse and keys, and walk out to the garage to fire up T-Hoe for a trip to town for her daily magical elixir. But you'd think wrong.

First, Mrs. HM must take her meds. Check her internet. Give a dog her two dogs, Puppy Jack and Sweet, Sweet Juno a bone from last night's pork steaks. Notice something in the yard that might be a chicken carcass, so wend her way down Farmer H's porch steps and into his rock garden filled with lava rocks and over the up-ended bricks that demarcate the infertile garden from the yard and over the two broken halves of the flea market bird bath, and out to the barren dirt spot to find one of Jack's old toys, the canvas duck that squeaks, covered with mud.

From there, she sees Jack's neglected plastic cat-litter-box pool, and dumps it and turns on the spigot for rinsing and refilling, only to be splattered with the gunk rinsing from the miniature rectangular blue pool, so much that her pajama bottoms and her CROCS are soaked!

Squishing back to the house, she laments how loose those Crocs are without socks and filled with water. Puts them on the back porch for drying, and starts a load of laundry for her jammies. That means she needs to gather some towels and other clothes to toss in. Then take a shower before going to get that 44 oz Diet Coke.

Oh, but first she needs to know how much the #1 son charged to her credit card (with permission) for a textbook ($79 and change, which was cheaper than his college bookstore) so she could take that money out of his college fund along with the money to cover the eCheck she sent his bursar for some fees last week. He was in class, but texted back the amount after shaming Mrs. HM for the interruption.

Off to town, finally, for the money transfer from credit union to bank. With a persistent message popping up on her new used Nexus 5X about upgrading to 7.0 Nougat. Yes, without much change, but maybe better battery life, advised #1. So I hit the update button, thinking it would just take a few minutes there in town with many bars (not THAT kind of bars). But then it said a restart would be needed afterward. And kept going and going and going. Making me regret that split-second decision.

Back to the gas station chicken store for my 44 oz Diet Coke, but since my phone wasn't done, I detoured to buy some lottery tickets at the Country Mart. Still not done. So back I went to the other town to have a delicious frozen custard. It's been almost a year. I've resisted. The plan was to enjoy one with The Pony on his farewell tour, but we never got around to it. Instead of ordering my favorite medium concrete with chocolate custard and caramel and chocolate chips, I wise-choiced a chocolate toddler cone. Can you believe that frozen custard was nearly flavorless? I swear, it was worse than Dairy Queen not-even-ice-cream. Though I DID slurp up every drop and crumb. Sadly disappointing.

Over to the gas station chicken store again, where I noticed that my phone had STILL not completed its mission. However, I always get maximum bars on that parking lot. I went in to get my 44, and waited five minutes when I came out, and it was done. Then I had to download that info. Then install it. So much trouble to go to for a 44 oz Diet Coke.

Tomorrow I can't have one, because I have to wait on a UPS delivery (Sooner football tickets) to give a signature. The world is SO unfair!

Retired people problems.