I didn’t think it was possible, but today sucked even worse than Monday.

It’s so humid outside (and hot) I wanted to die as soon as I got in my car, but I REALLY wanted to go to Hobby Lobby to get some paper and some yarn (to finish that damn sweater). I make it to the Hobby Lobby only to find it’s moved, but luckily only to the building next door. “Cool,” I think out loud. That building is bigger. There will be more craft supplies! Wrong. As soon as I walk in, I realize that some 75% of the store is now stupid home decor crap imported from sweatshops around the world. The arts and craft supplies are all smashed up again the back wall, and the yarn department is tucked away in a far dark corner … and it’s TINY. It takes me almost an hour to find what I was looking for, because the store is huge, and the employees are clueless. I pay for my two items and flee back out into the heat.

Well, something must have rearranged itself in the trunk of the car, because I hear a “sssss” sound and smell … carb cleaner. I rush to the back of the car, open the trunk and find the toolbox has moved and is smashing the top of the spray can. The carpet in the trunk is drench with carb cleaner. As if the damn car didn’t smell badly enough of automotive juices, now it REALLY reeks to high heaven. I get in the car, open all the windows, and quietly weep to myself. Between the gas fumes, the carb cleaner fumes, the high heat and humidity, and the general poor state of Austin’s air quality, I can barely breath … and my eyes are starting to burn. Nothing to be done about it in a parking lot though, so I press on to the grocery store.

Alas, I suddenly remember I forgot the coupons for free milk and bread, so I have to go back to the house. No real biggie, since it’s sort of on the way. I pull into the driveway … and have a confrontation with the neighbor. I stomp into the house, find my coupons, clip them out and realize they stopped being good yesterday. Dammit. I debate surviving another day without milk, bread and yogurt, but decide I can’t do it, so back out to the car I go.

Of course by this time it’s almost rush hour, so there’s traffic. Boy, is there traffic. I turn onto Rundberg, and knowing the roadwork on the other side of the intersection at Lamar isn’t due to be finished until the end of the week, I get into the proper lane so I don’t have to do any merging. After what feels like forever, I get through that intersection to find the roadwork has been finished early and I am now in the wrong lane to get into the HEB parking lot. I will spare you the description of the cursing and hassle it took to get to the HEB. Let’s just say it was hell. Pulling into the lot, I see it’s almost totally full, so I end up parking somewhere in Africa and hiking across the asphalt desert. Ugh.

The store is insanely packed with crazy, stupid people, and I am thankful I am only there to get a few things. I quickly grab my ten items: milk, bread, yogurt, frozen lasagna, Peach Sunny D and coffee beans. I rush to get into the express checkout lane. I look up, and the person in front of me has at least 30 items. I want to kill him on the spot, but instead, I wilt against my cart and wish myself off the planet. The wishing doesn’t work. I eventually get up to the cashier, and she’s pleasant enough, but slow. I pay for my goods, and the little girl doing the bagging puts my things into my cart. I crawl back across the asphalt desert and start putting the bags in the car. That’s when I notice my yogurt is missing. Holy freaking hell. I make the trek back to the store again.

By the time I reach the door, my hair is soaked with sweat, and I probably have the look of an ax-murderer in my eyes. I ask the bagging girl if there’s a bag with my yogurt in it. She looks at me as though I am from another planet. In between customers, the cashier asks what’s wrong and looks for the bag, then declares it must have gotten mixed up with someone else’s things. Well, it wasn’t mixed up when I freaking PAID for it, now was it. She tells me to go get more and stand in line. I skulk back to the yogurt cooler and grab my five little containers of yogurt, return, stand in line with people who can’t count to ten for another 20 minutes while the cold things already in the car cease being cold. When I am one person away from standing in front of her, she finally hands me a bag and tells me I can go. Well, gee … thanks.

I get back to the car again, and the golf cart security guy is lurking around it. After telling me he hasn’t seen a car like mine since his dad owned one, he then proceeds to inform me that my car needs to be washed, is in bad shape and stinks. I resist the urge to either strangle him or tell him his face is so ugly it could break all the mirrors in a WalMart Supercenter, and get into the driver’s seat without saying anything. If looks could kill though, he’d have been a dead man on the spot. And yes … his face really is that ugly … and he’s a total jerk too.

More awful traffic on the way home, but then I finally get back to the house. The neighbor, obviously not satisfied with the outcome of our previous confrontation, is laying in wait for me. We have another confrontation. I declare myself the winner and leave her standing in my yard alone. The gloves are now officially off, and the next time those ignorant assholes do anything … like say set off rockets in their back yard late at night … I will have NO problems at all calling the police. Oh, and Annoying Boy has a name. Three years here, and I finally know his name. It’s Roger. Don’t worry, you don’t have to remember that. He’s always going to be Annoying Boy to me.

I get the groceries put away, pour myself a tall semi-cool glass of Sunny D, plop into my desk chair and try to a) calm down, b) catch my breath, and c) return my core body temperature to something close to normal. My respite is short-lived. Lin walks in the door almost as soon as I take my first breath. He hasn’t eaten all day, and he wants supper now. De-freaking-lightful. Good thing I had the sense to buy some frozen lasagna … having the notion after the carb cleaner problem that as badly as the day was going, I wasn’t going to feel like cooking. Knowing it’s going to suck if I make it in the microwave, I do so anyway. I haven’t eaten all day either, and Lin doesn’t think he can survive the hour it takes to do it in the oven.

Now, everyone has been fed, Lin is taking his aggression out on digital zombies, and I am sitting here thinking of just going to bed now and staying there until morning. Too bad I had to do the dishes and take out the trash first. I should also probably finish the laundry. A big part of me is saying “just screw it all and go to bed,” but the trash bin is rather full, and paying $2 for an overflow bag next week isn’t going to make today any better, now is it?

Only two things that weren’t crappy happened today: I found a pad of real, heavy-duty cardstock in a variety of colors that I could use my 40% off coupon on (87 sheets in a size perfect for making art cards for $2.40), and I was declared the Best Ex-Wife Ever. So I guess the whole day wasn’t a complete loss. I’m going to go deal with the trash, open a nice cold beer, and veg on the couch while Lin kills mutant digital zombies. Hopefully that will rejuvenate me enough to get the rest of the housework done and do some more research for the Best Ex-Husband Ever.