Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's Really Really Bad Terrible Kind Of Day

Yesterday, the universe worked overtime to conspire against Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.

The day started with a beep. At 6:30 a.m. An hour which Mrs. HM has no desire to be aware of, now that she's retired. That beep was caused by some electronic gadget that objects to its power source being squelched. So let's get this right. I had to wake up to discover that the power was out, which meant that there was nothing interesting to do, so I might as well go back to sleep.

At 8:30 I got up and was pleased to see that the power was back on. I went to the kitchen and reset the microwave clock, and within 15 seconds, the power had gone off again. Not my fault! Just a coincidence. The power came back on pretty quick that time.

I sat down with Shiba, my laptop, in the La-Z-Boy, and was texted by my sister the ex-mayor's wife. She asked if the #1 son's solar car team was okay, because she saw that it was still at the starting point, while the other cars were well on their way up the western border of Missouri, and ready to cross over into Kansas. Well. I can't get that tracking program on Shiba, so I headed down to New Delly to look for myself. And there it was, a green dot representing his team, sitting on a road near Springfield.

Of course I was beside myself with worry, what with Farmer H having also texted me to see how the race was going. I didn't want to bother #1. He's in a race, you know. But he has 23 other team members and support staff with him. So I sent a text asking if his solar car was okay. He must have had someone else driving that lead car for him, because he responded right away. Their car's transponder had quit working. They were actually running in 4th place. Whoopie!

Then I went to transfer laundry from the washer to the dryer, and of course random single socks fell short of the dryer, forcing me to bend over in a manner somewhat like exercise to pick them up. I blame Farmer H, who never should have put in that plastic laundry sink that he found at work, and I told him I didn't want. Put it right there between the washer and dryer, when he built the house, even though I told him I would never use a laundry sink! Most people have their washer and dryer side-by-side, you know. Or stacked on top of one another. Not separated so you have to fling wet clothing across the room.

I headed off to town, and of course Farmer H and Sis started texting me in reply to the solar car update, just as I hit the narrowest section of county road, down by the low water bridge, with a van coming at me so that I had to get tire-scrapingly close to that 12-inch blacktop drop-off edge. Of course I did not check my phone while driving. It doesn't take more than one public service announcement about the dead and maimed to make Mrs. HM eschew texting and driving.

Since I hadn't been to Save A Lot for two days, I stopped by for some salsa and green onions. Oh, and a pack of peanut butter/cheese crackers. And two bags of Peppered Bacon potato chips, which I've never seen before. Of course the only line open had some crazy college-age-looking guy in it with a full cart. I would have pegged him for an extreme couponer, but Save A Lot doesn't take them. Still, he had that cart piled full, and told the girl checker, "Do you want me just to hold them up and tell you how many?" And she agreed! Even though I saw stuff under those piled boxes that he wasn't showing her.

An old dude who might have been homeless came up behind me in line. I didn't engage. My weirdo magnet has been pretty powerful lately. I couldn't see what he had, but it mustn't have been much, because he didn't even have a cart. Then the old Methuselah's granddaughter with the coal-black hair opened up her register and said she could help someone, and wouldn't you know it, the homeless dude went to it first. Maybe it's just me, but I certainly felt entitled to that register, because I was next in line. And besides, what else does a homeless dude have to do all day, anyway? I had to get home to not-watch the solar car race on my computer! So I moved over to that register and paid cash, and got back $1.67 in change. Two pennies short of a 44 oz Diet Coke at the gas station chicken store.

My soda purchase was okay. I couldn't get excited about it, because the Diet Coke has not been up to snuff lately. I keep hoping someone smart will change the CO-2 canister so it's tasty again. However, when I got home and tried it, my Diet Coke tasted like Pepsi. Ptooey! Still, the good news is that I had 44 ounces of it. So there's that.

When I stopped to rip the mail from EmBee's innards, there was a red dually truck parked on our gravel road by the creek. What fresh not-heaven...? I jumped back in T-Hoe with a couple of sale ads, and drove by that truck. It held a lady with short hair who seemed engrossed in her phone, which is a big freakin' joke because there's no service down there in the dip. So she was just playing phone possum to make me not notice her. But I did, in her truck that had no bed on it, but two pieces of what looked like silver tin corrugated barn roofing bent to make ersatz fenders over those double tires. Who knows what she was up to. I had other fish to fry.

Okay, that was a lie, I did not fry fish for my lunch. I went to make my Super Nachos for lunch, and as I sprinkled the fajita chicken pieces I had painstakingly chopped over it, a piece bounced off the quesoed lettuce and fell to the floor. I measure out my calories, you know. And that represented AT LEAST 3 wasted! As I bent (again with the unplanned exercise!) to pick it up out from under the cabinets...I grabbed a piece of dried petrified mummified former fajita chicken. YUCK! Somebody really needs to sweep that kitchen floor more often!

Good news was that the solar car team had their electronic gewgaw updated, and I got to watch the end of the race at 6:00. But then I bit into a bite of leftover bratwurst and chomped on a bone/toenail/hoof UCO (unidentified chewing object).

So it was not really a red-letter day. Unless I think of myself as Hester Prynne. And then I guess it kind of was.