If It Weren't for Bad Luck... At Least it's Not Me

I laid in bed until after 1:00 last night before I finally gave up and moved to the couch. It was entirely too warm in my bedroom, the hairless wonder kept leaping off the bed to scratch, his tags dingling against his collar, then jumping back in place and trying to scootch me over.

The dog only weights like 30lbs, but he could scootch a moose out of his way.

There were other reasons I couldn't sleep, but those are the highlights. So anyway, I got up, moved to the couch in the living room, dragging my quilt behind me, stopping to turn the a.c. on low and crashing out in front of it. I dreamed that I argued with Ma over selling my first car 26 years ago, flipped around in my sleep like a Mexican jumping bean then around 3 a.m., I woke up in a cold sweat and freezing my tush off.

Finally I slept. I would have slept on through until 6:30, but when the Amazon got up to go to work at Oh Dark Thirty and found me on the couch, she felt it was her duty to poke me awake to make sure I knew I was asleep on the couch. I groggily explained to her that it was okay, I'd set the alarm on my phone. She left for work and I snuggled back down in to the couch and went back to sleep.

Sometime between 6 and 6:30, the scanner went off. "Boop BEEP boop. Boop BEEP boop," which my brain is still programmed to recognize as the Frog Pond Holler VFD tones. I listened for a second to make sure we weren't under attack, being flooded or anything else that couldn't wait until the butt crack of dawn. When they said to respond to someone who'd recently had knee surgery, I knew right away it was Thelma's dad, who is also the Amazon's boss.

Bless his heart. That's painful surgery anyway and he's had nothing but problems. I felt bad for him, but not bad enough to get up.

I dozed back off just in time for the alarm to go off. I hit snooze. I deserved a snooze.

Seconds later, before I'd even reached a snooze state...

"Mahala.. Mahala.. MAHALA.. are you awake.. MAHALA.. was that your phone.. what did she say.. MAHALA!!!"

I rolled over to see Ma standing in the kitchen wringing her hands. I think she heard my alarm and assumed it was the Amazon calling about Thelma's dad. I'm not exactly sure.

In spite of all that, I made it to work on time. As I was falling out of the truck in the parking lot, I met Thelma, coffee in hand and leaving for the hospital. Apparently her dad's knee "popped" and he'd taken just about all of his pain medication before he bothered calling anyone. We figure he's probably going to be having another surgery today. I only got bits and pieces of what she was telling me because I was distracted by her left eye being swollen shut. It looked like she'd been in a bar brawl... and lost.

She said she didn't have a very good weekend.

Apparently she'd scratched her cornea and was pretty much blind in one eye. This happened right after they got her son's car put out. It caught on fire after having a new stereo installed. I watched all five feet of her climbing in her daddy's big, gray Silverado (because her car died last week) and shook my head.

I'm just tired.. I can deal with tired.

There's no one in the office but me, PG and the GM's assistant, the last of which you'd might as well not even count because she doesn't do anything but talk on her cellphone. It's Lulu's day off and mandatory manager's week off for both Bossman and Tiny. I've already had one customer call and demand that I put his quote in front of all the others. I did not make his day. He will get over it... or not.

Ya'll have a bootay kickin' day and hang in there. I know I will.

Later Taters!