One of Those Days

We have a habit of blaming Monday when we experience one of those bad, rotten, forgettable, terrible days, those days when nothing seems to go as planned or expected. About the only good comment a person can make about such a day is that he or she made it through to the bitter end. Poor Monday, always getting blamed for these sorts of days. “This is my Monday,” a colleague will declare when nothing goes right, regardless of what day of the week it may actually happen to be.

If such days always occurred on Mondays, we could just take that day of the week off, stay home, and save ourselves a lot of hassles and irritations. Unfortunately, such days strike with no warning, something like National Rude People’s Day. You wake up, get out of bed, and everything goes downhill from that moment on.

I had such a day this month. It actually occurred on a Monday, which didn’t make it any less frustrating of a day, but at least I could whine about those awful Mondays, and be stating the truth. When a day starts out on the left foot, it never truly straightens out, especially when it happens on a workday and I can’t even take a long hike into the woods to relieve the stress.

Let’s see, I got up, tripped over the dog who was just wanting breakfast, spilled some coffee on the counter, and stubbed my toe on a chunk of wood that was lying peacefully in front of the wood stove. I left for work, enjoyed a nice uneventful jaunt to get to the office, and never suspected that the litany of woes had just begun.

Since technology and I have an uneasy truce at the best of times, I should have known what was in store as far as a productive workday when I turned on my work computer. It took forever for the programs to load, ArcPro threw down the gauntlet and refused to even open up on the first, or second, or third try, and it failed to work properly the entire day. My personal email wouldn’t let me access my inbox, so I finally changed my password, which unleashed demons. I then had to endure a slew of emails asking security questions. I am not sure why I wanted to check my personal email anyway, as there were seemingly dozens of emails all with the same theme – I had won a marvelous prize and needed to respond immediately. I wonder who sold my email address to what character on the Dark Web?

Did I ever tell you I hate technology?

I discovered that the ArcPro program decided to move at a snail’s pace when asked to perform any task whatsoever. It made a slug look like a race horse, actually. I rebooted the program twice, attempted to complete some georeferencing, and what should have taken ten minutes took a half hour. I tried updating Windows; I tried updating ArcPro, and spent some minutes looking out the window repeating ‘Ohmmm’ to myself. In case you are interested, saying ‘Ohm’ and taking deep breaths really is an ineffectual way to deal with anything, in my experience.

Nothing worked to speed up a very sluggish computer, including chanting ‘Ohm’. I figure Ohm was a better word to use than the other, more colorful ones often describing barnyard animals that easily came to mind.

Break time. I walked down to the post office and received an unexpected bill in the mail, always guaranteed to cheer someone up, especially optimistic me. It started to snow at 31º, making the walkways slick and treacherous for pedestrians, which offered a real potential of finding myself on my backside instead of remaining upright. At least I didn’t fall on my way back to the office, so what am I complaining about?

The day continued along these lines. I didn’t get lunch as a few ‘have-tos’ arose that I used lunch hour to complete. If you know me, food is quite high on my priority list, so missing lunch is a very big deal for me.

My boss kindly pointed out that I had toothpaste dribbles on my shirt, I knocked a carton of yogurt on the carpet and no amount of scrubbing removed the white traces of my mishap which will annoy the custodian to no end, I devoured a handful of stale, leftover pretzels that I ought to have left in the bag, ArcPro continued to throw tantrums periodically (have I ever told you how much I detest technology?), I found conflicting information on a few documents and had to decipher what was correct and what was not, a few demanding individuals made unwelcome appearances, and the list of complaints and irritations went on and on.

I am pleased to report that the day did finally end. I made it home without incident. I then had the perplexing choice of whether I wanted a mug of hot chocolate heavily laced with peppermint schnapps, or whether I preferred a glass of wine, using, of course, a quart jar for the wine glass.

I am proud that I refrained from taking a shotgun to the computer, decided not to hang barbed wire around my property and then hunker down like a true hermit, and forget the outside world. But that is still within the realm of possibility, if too many manic Mondays rear their heads in the future.