Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's Kind Of Awkward, Somewhat Annoying, Still Better Than Being Employed, Day

Oh, dear. Some days just don't go as planned. Every little thing turns into an ordeal. Like walking across your kitchen floor first thing in the morning, and feeling like your bare feet are OUTSIDE walking on dirt. Because you ARE walking on dirt!

I was headed to the main post office to mail the boys' weekly letters. T-Hoe wasn't even to the mailboxes at the end of our gravel road when I heard something skitter off the console into the back seat area. It was the little pill box that I'd stopped to put my medicine in at the end of the driveway.

That was because I'd forgotten that little pill box in T-Hoe overnight. And I stopped at the end of the driveway to take two pills out of my pocket and put them in it. At the end of the driveway, because I hadn't brought the trash dumpster down yesterday. And it had blown over in the strong wind, because apparently some new guy took over our route in the past three months, and parked it with the wheels facing back towards the house.

Anyhoo...I stopped down by EmBee's row of mailboxes and found the pill box on the cup holder of the back seat, and headed on to the main post office. I had parked and was ready to open the door when a lady parked beside me, and then walked around her still-running car to get something off the passenger seat. So I couldn't get my door open. And she hadn't pulled in all the way, so her mirror kept T-Hoe's door from opening all the way. So I had to hold it to keep from hitting her car, and weasel my knees out the lesser opening.

When I came out, that lady had just gotten inside her car, so I stood at T-Hoe's hood and waited for her to back out. You know, so I didn't make her wait while I was wrestling the door. Except she kept sitting there, even after three cars had driven by behind us making their exit. So I wrestled the door and got in, and wouldn't you know it, there went that lady as soon as I got inside.

I stopped by the Casey's where I get my gas, to trade in some scratchers. I parked in front of their dumpster, leaving plenty of room next to me for the air hose. It's in high demand there. I'd no sooner turned T-Hoe off than I saw the garbage truck pull out of the car wash exit, so I started him up and moved to park around back. Once inside, I learned that THIS CASEY'S IS CLOSING NEXT MONTH!

On to The Devil's Playground, where I had to wrestle three carts to get one loose from the baby-seatbelt latch that was hooking them together. I could probably start a second career as a wrestler. I made it through the Playground with only a couple of people glaring at me when they jumped around an end display and into my path as I was pushing my cart slowly and methodically down the aisle.

At the checkout, the Devil's (old) Handmaiden rang up my four Chicken Bacon Ranch Pinwheels, and said, "Hm. These must be really good." As if insinuating that I was a glutton, and going to eat all four at once. I was polite, though, and even told her she'd forgotten to scan my 8-pack of mini Diet Cokes that I'd draped over the side of the cart.

While I was paying, a weirdo almost climbed on top of me. He was tall and bald and old and was with his wife or some woman he had captured. The minute the conveyor started forward, he grabbed that divider and jammed their stuff up as close as he could to mine. I guess he just lives his life that way. I may or may not (okay, I most certainly DID) give him the stinkeye while I was trying to punch in my PIN, and he was ON ME like stink on roadkill. Then he said, "I'm going to just scoot through here," and wormed his way behind me and past, heading up toward the return desk.

I made a comment that I'd THOUGHT he was getting kind of close. As I left, he was coming back with a cart full of empty boxes, and said he was sorry, he was just after those boxes, and apologized for being a close-checker. At least there's THAT.

Once I braved the high winds and made it back to T-Hoe, parked way up almost at the end, the better for more exercise, which always seems like a good idea going downhill toward the store, but never upon coming out and heading uphill with a loaded cart, I got inside to write down the total off the receipt. I got my change out of my change cup, ready for my next stop at the gas station chicken store for a 44 oz Diet Coke. I'll be ding dang donged if I didn't knock that medicine box off the console again!

This time it fell between the passenger seat and the console. I could see a corner of it. I could pry my hand down in that crack, but couldn't grasp it or move it forward or back. It slipped all the way under the passenger seat. So I had to get out and go around and stick my arm up in under that seat, amid several metal bars that make the track for the seat to slide on for adjustment. I got the pill box, but I must have nicked my skin, or that metal is rusting like a beached battleship, because my whole forearm had a couple of red streaks down it. So I had to get out the Germ-X and take a car bath.

Once at the gas station chicken store, parked over by the moat, I took my pills and checked my phone and looked over my $40 winner that I was cashing in...then got out. The minute I started across the parking lot, a guy in a big white diesel pickup, pulling a trailer, who had been sitting in it since the time I pulled in...started revving his engine like I was impeding his exit. Trucker!

Inside, I at least got my magical elixir into the cup without incident. Then I got in line. A man at the counter took his own sweet time writing in his checkbook. I think maybe he was balancing his account. The next lady had a case of beer (no worries, it was 1:00) and asked for two packs of menthol cigarettes. Then she wrote a check, which they had no record of her doing there before, so the Asian dude clerk I like so much had to get all her info. I must say he was patient and calm, and a better man that I. But while waiting (not like I had anywhere to be) I noticed that the beer-buying lady was wearing a jacket with a SCHOOL BUS embroidered on the back! Not a decal. EMBROIDERED. That's not cheap. Why would somebody wear a jacket like that, unless...oh...I don't know...maybe...they were a SCHOOL BUS DRIVER!

Anyhoo...she paid for her beer and cigs, then I got my turn, and thought I was off to my Mansion Sweet Mansion where no further trouble could befall me...made all three lights green...only to have a TRACTOR pull out in front of me at the junction of Save A Lot and Orb K. A big orange tractor, top speed 15 miles per hour.

15 MPH, people!

Yes. I finally made it home. Finally got my lunch ready. Had partially eaten it. When Farmer H appeared at my dark basement lair door, to inform me that he had invited HOS's boy to supper and the auction. Seriously. Two hours notice. Though I'm sure this plan has been in effect since last weekend's auction. So supper plans changed. I got the two of them fed.

Now I'm off to make something for myself. I hope I don't sever an artery.