Challenge Day

Yesterday was one of those days you dread, that if you know what it is going to be like, you wouldn’t bother getting up.  I should have figured that out when I first got up and did what I do everyday – head downstairs to take the dog out.  For some reason I made the turn for the stairs about three feet short and walked directly into a wall.  Now it was pitch dark but this is still a turn I’ve made thousands of times without incident.  Of course walking into the wall generated its own repercussions in addition to a sore forehead. My wife woke from a dead sleep and rushed out thinking I had fallen down the stairs and the dog started barking maniacally.   My wife was a little less sympathetic to the cause of her early morning rise when I explained what happened.  The dog loved it because he got out of his cage a little earlier.  Things got worse at work where I was wrestling with the routing software our company uses.  I was really good at it when I last used it three years ago but again this is software and it was three years (and several other types of software I used daily in the interim) ago.  I finally made some headway with it, in time for a conference call with a French-Canadian expert who was about as sympathetic to my struggles as my wife been earlier.  In the end it all worked out but it was much tougher than it should have been.  When I finished this I rushed out of the office for the last purchase for my Christmas list – my wife’s “big” present.  I’m buying her an electronic gift that I had to wait to purchase because if I did it earlier she would know because of billing and other account changes.  I tracked the availability of the item at a local electronics store which said it was still available as I sailed out the door.  Of course when I got there I was told (the clerk actually laughed) that they had been sold out for over a week.  I grumbled something about updating their status and realizing they do it so you still come into the store.  I had him check availability at several other local stores without success.  I am frantic at this point and call my electronics gurus, my daughter and son in law.  Being the superb human beings they are, they tried to solve my problem and actually located the item I needed while struggling through New York City holiday shopping crowds (they are the best people in the world).  Unfortunately they could not purchase it due to account restrictions and I ended up buying the item on line so my wife gets an empty box (1-2 weeks delivery time) and a promise for her big gift but she’s still going to love it.  I’ve explained earlier how much I detest shopping in all its forms (except book stores) and this is yet another chapter in my sad history of shopping effectiveness.  My day was not yet complete as I had yet to fail in grocery shopping.  I’m in charge of preparing the Christmas dinner – big tradition in our house.  I went out yesterday in search of an appropriate sized turkey and after visiting eight different stores I was still empty handed.  The biggest bird I could find was 18 pounds, well short of the 21 pounds I will comprise down to from the optimal 25.  So today I’m heading out again in search of the elusive avian.  When I got home last evening I think my wife realized how frustrating my day had been and decided to forgo helping decorate the church and went out on a date night with me.  We saw the movie, Sherlock Holmes – Game of Shadows, which was pretty good if a little uneven in pacing.  As we left the theater I realized that as bad as my day had been, the evening with this woman had made up for all of it.  I’m glad I got up.  Now if I could just find a damned turkey!