My bad half-day...

I don't want to complain about everything in my life, but today just seemed to fray the very fiber of my existence. Well, that's probably taking it too far, but it was pretty annoying at times today. I don't know if it's just because I was in a hurry and had things to do and places to go, because that tends to amplify it, or if I'm just impatient. It's probably a combination of both.

First off, I get up late for work. It's not that I'm "late" but rather I got up later than I thought I would. I get out the door at a semi-decent time, 7:30, and head for the local grocery store so I can buy a six-pack of pop and to get some cash back for the week.

I get to the check out and the guy behind there has just finished with a customer. I plop my six-pack down and wait for the guy to acknowledge me. He's looking down and making a motion with his leg. I wait. He makes the motion with his leg a few times more while looking down. I look at my watch, tap my hands on the checkout shelf and watch the guy make the same motion with his leg while looking down. The guy finally stops making that motion with his leg and bends down. He picks up a pen! The motion that he's been making for the last 45 seconds was him trying to manipulate a pen that had fallen down below the checkout surface and he was trying to pull it back towards him by gently, ever so gently and slowly, move the pen with the ball of his foot by pulling backwards on it. Granted, it probably would been a lot easier to bend down and grab the pen, not to mention faster, but this guy had chosen his method of pulling a pen towards him and he was sticking to it by God!

He finally gets up with his pen, sets it down and asks, "Did you find everything all right?"

I had. So he rings me up. He scans my pop and my donut. I give him my card and tell him how much cash back that I want. He types it in fast. I swipe my card and type the confirm commands to get my cash and I'm thinking that this is going to make up for lost time. The drawer opens for my cash when another store employee walks up. The cashier was starting to grab my cash, stops and then starts fiddling under the drawer for some receipts that he needs to give the other guy.

He's doing this with one hand by the way as the other hand is trying to get my cash. Now I'm assuming that giving me my cash first and sending me on my merry way would be smart since I'm the customer, but I guess he was wanting to please us both, which wasn't happening. The cashier mumbles something about receipts he needs to give someone when the other guy asks, "Do you have a quarter?"

I look down and the other guy has two dimes and a nickel in his hand. That's it? This is why I'm delayed yet again? I look at my watch as I have been doing for the last four minutes that I've been standing there hoping that it will send a signal that reads "Time is money" or "I'm a man that has too little time on his hands" or "Hey! Look at the time!"

Finally I get my money and leave. I glance at my watch and it's not bad, but not great. I had hoped to hit the new Dodge street expressway by 7:35, but it's now 7:45. Traffic is bad as I head a mile north as it seems that every car is itching to try out the new expressway.

I finally get going on the expressway, but when it merges into 680 South, that's when it's like a scene out of Final Destination 2. Cars are flying this way and that. Cars behind me are trying to get around me. I'm trying to get around the cars in front of me. Some lanes are going fast. Some are going slow, which causes near wrecks as those trying to get from the fast lanes to the slow lanes have to slow down abruptly to get over.

I finally get to work.

My agenda over the lunch hour was to renew my license at the Department of Motor Vehicles so that I can register to vote. I just moved to Omaha about 9 months ago so I must register to vote again. I find out from our receptionist that all of the DMVs are closed because they all have training classes on their new computer system this week. I was a little stumped. The deadline to register to vote in the state of Nebraska at the DMV is October 18th, which happens to be right in the middle of the closed office week. I smell conspiracy... No matter, I decided to go to the court house downtown to see if I can get a renewal.

I go downstairs to the renewal office and wait in line. It's not long, but it's a little stuffy down there. This is a bad problem because two vintage-clothes alterna-adults are standing in front of me. The woman to my left is wearing what can only be described as a black and white Purina dress (if they made clothes). Her hair has jet black roots with blond streaks to accentuate her short, slicked spiked up hair. She tops it off with some black horn-rimmed glasses. The guy is wearing a more conventional drab-green wool coat with a short stocking cap that is not unlike the caps that bald football players wear, except that it's just made of yarn.

My problem is not the clothes that they are wearing. You can wear whatever you want. I don't care.

However, if you are going to dress that way, how about taking a bath first? Better yet, how about a shower? While you're in the cleaning mood, how about washing those clothes?

They seemed like nice enough kids, but the guy took off his hat and starting fan them, which put regular whiffs of stale body odor with a touch of clove cigarettes or incense. Whatever it was, it was not too pleasant and I just had to stand there (because there was a scary looking guy right behind me) and cover my nose to avoid the B.O. As they were leaving, I felt compelled to remark, "It's called deodorant" but didn't because I'm sure they don't even realize they smell.

I finish with the DMV and head over to the local electronics store to get some earphone pads. Mine keep tearing because I don't wind up the headphones in their case. I just wrap it around my cd player and stuff it in my pocket, which probably contributes to the problem.

I go in and the friendly people there asked me if there was anything that I was looking for. I answer like I always do that "No. I'm just looking around. Thank You." which is followed by "Well, we have a lot of specials so feel free to ask" response.

I glance around at some of the MP3 accessories and look for the earphone pads. They're not in the usual spot, so I ask the guy behind the counter where they are. They had thoughtfully rearranged the store so he finds them for me.

As I'm paying for this 4 dollar item, the guy behind the counter makes sure to tell me that "As usual, we have our batteries on sale."

I mutter, "Uh huh."

I make the mistake of "glancing" at the back wall because they are filled with flash drives. The guy notices my "interest" and starts telling me about the wonders of flash memory. I am literally trying to walk away and he's going "I just got this 2 gig flash drive and it's really great because it comes complete with security on it and Firefox, which is really great."

I'm trying to walk away still, but at least he's trying to wrap it up fast.

"Whenever I work on someone's computer, I use the drive to put programs on it that I'll need like adaware, Spybot and a few others so that I don't have to download them from download.com."

I smile and say, "All right then."

Hate to be hard on the guy, but what part of my "I'm trying to walk out of the store" motion did he not understand. Plus, I have a flash drive and while handy it isn't as great as he describes. You mean you can actually put stuff on the flash drives and take them with you to put on someone else's computer? Get out of town!

So actually it was a bad half day. Maybe I just hate people?