Cindy & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

 

I did not have a good day yesterday. Small parts of it were ok. But overall, it was a very bad day.

Jason has a class every Tuesday in Chapel Hill near the stake center. He hasn't gone since his surgery, and yesterday he was ready to go but was still unable to drive. So I loaded the littles into the car and off we went. By the time we'd driven the 45 minutes, all three little kids were complaining that they were going to throw up. I assured them that they were going to be fine, opened some windows, turned up the air, and drove 10 more minutes to Super Walmart. I needed to return some things and look for white Sunday shoes for the girls. (Note to self--buy white Sunday shoes before Easter, not after!) Somehow I found myself in a dressing room with all three little kids trying on clothes at the same time, a process that sucked the energy out of me as if they had been using a straw. I had planned to go to Home Depot after Walmart, but the Walmart excursion took it all out of me, so instead I went back to the home where the class was being held and waited for it to be done. (Note to self--if it's lunch time, find some real food. Don't think that that box of breakfast bars from Walmart is going to do you any good whatsoever.)

I ran a few errands on the way home. (Ok, one part of my day that was really fabulous was finding out that one of my favorite groups of kid fabrics was on sale at $1.99/yard when I stopped in for something else at the fabric store. At that great price I had to buy...um...some!) We arrived here at 3:30, I unloaded kids, inhaled a bowl of chili, and set off for Costco for an eye exam. Here is where the day goes waaayyyy downhill.

One of our friends is having a birthday this week. His family is going through an incredibly stressful time, and so I figured a normal type of birthday present might not be the best thing this year. I conferenced with Cindy Lynn and we decided that a good present would be a couple of gift cards to local restuarants. (Don't worry--he is completely anti-blog and would never read this!) Russ picked up two gift cards on his way home from work, but I also wanted.....

a Panda Express gift card.

The only problem was that the closest Panda Express is all the way down by the temple, or in the student center at Duke. No problem, I thought, I'll ask one of the students in the ward to pick up a gift card. And so I did. But he forgot.

Now back to Costco. I had my eye exam, found a pair of glasses that I might like, and did my grocery shopping with my uncomfortably dilated eyes. I had the brilliant idea that since I was relatively close to Duke and (more importantly) I no longer had 4 kids in the car with me, I could pick up the gift card myself. I called and got directions and then I was off.

I should have known to scrap the mission entirely when, on the first street inside of the Duke campus I hit what must be the worlds largest speed bump. Seriously. I was airborne for several seconds, and then when my van landed it hit parts of the undercarriage that have never touched land before. I am sure my van will never will be the same.

Unfortunately I missed that karmic warning and continued onward.

When I got to the student center there was lots of parking available. I was so happy at not having to hunt for a parking spot that I immediately forgot the warning of the speed bump. I parked and walked in.

My direction-giver had told me that the Panda Express was downstairs in the student center, so I squinted through my dilated pupils, trying to figure out where the stairs were. I finally found a ramp that sloped gradually down into what appeared to be a food court kind of area. At the bottom of the ramp there was a smoothie shop.

Smoothies were one of my favorite things to get in Hawaii, and we've made a lot of smoothies since we got back. I am normally much too frugal to buy a smoothie in real life, though. But my day had been so long and I had eaten so little (especially if you forget about all of the breakfast bars) and my dilated eyes were really starting to make my head hurt and I decided a yummy smoothie was exactly what I needed. And so I ordered. Of course the ordering was a little difficult, due to not really being able to read the information through my fuzzy eyes. And then the lady wanted to know what I wanted added to my smoothie, and by this point my brain was dead enough that I didn't know what she was talking about, and so she kept reeling off a list of additives: immune, energy, muscles, protein, and who knows what else. I finally decided that the lack of brain function that I was experiencing was a definite indication that I needed protein, and she dumped the protein powder in and blended my smoothie.

She set the finished smoothie on the counter and I whipped out my trusty VISA card. At this point things went seriously bad.

"We don't take credit cards," she said. As I reached for my checkbook she continued. All we take are Duke cards

or

cash.

I knew for a fact that the only cash on my entire person was one slim dime. And that that was not the cash she was talking about.

Fortunately for me, a student on the other side of the counter who was getting ready to pay for her treat noticed my distress. "You can put it on my Duke card," she offered helpfully. I asked if I could write her a check, but she assured me that it was no big deal. (No big deal because her mother paid for it, I'm sure--so thank you anonymous mother, wherever you are!)

Next she directed me and my moocher smoothie over to the ATM machines, since I had put 2 and 2 together and deduced that Panda Express probably was not going to let me pay for my gift card with cash.

There are three ATM machines downstairs in the student center at Duke. Unfortunately none of them is from the bank I bank with, which means that by using one I knew I'd be paying a $2.50 fee to that bank and to my bank as well. Oh well, I consoled myself. I was, after all, sucking down a (delicious) free smoothie (complete with protein), and I was willing to pay the service fee to get this gift card for my friend. (Although I must admit that by this point I was starting to wonder if we were this good of friends!)

Cash in one hand, smoothie in the other, I accosted a couple of unsuspecting students to get better directions to the Panda Express. Turns out it was back up the stairs, out another door, and around the corner. But I was finally there, finally ready to buy the Gift Card. Only to be told by the helpful employee, "You can only use Duke cards and cash here, so we don't sell gift cards!"

arghhhhhh!

At least the smoothie was good.

I feel so much better now that I've recorded this. Now everyone can sympathize with me over my terrible day....and it enabled me to ignore (for a little while) the nasty mess under my kitchen sink from a leaky pipe...I guess I should go deal with that now!