Crazy Day

Well, school starts tomorrow but I'm not sure I'm going to have enough energy to deal with it! Today definitely earns a nomination in my misadventure hall of fame.

Our car's alignment was all out of whack following our trip to SC, so my dad and Lukas dropped it off last night, so that we could get it this morning and head back to Mizzou. Well, this morning the place called, and said that our tires were old, filled with dry rot, and some other techno-lingo I didn't catch. (I guess I should mention that we got the alignment fixed two weeks before. How did our tires suddenly *noticeably* age seven years? I have no idea.) I had to go between holding, calling my dad at work, calling the place again, calling, my dad at work, price checking another place, etc. I should also mention that at this place all 3 guys working were named Jim, Joe, and John, and at first I kept forgetting just whom I was supposed to be speaking with. It turns out (of course) that another place had a by far better price, which was also going to be more of an ordeal.

Lukas had to do most of the run-around, because he was more packed than I was, so that was worse for him. But then he calls me on the way to pick up Julia, and goes “Umm, I think the speedometer’s messed up. It says I’m going fifty and I’m definitely not going more than thirty-five.” He planned on going back to the place, but then figured out that it had gotten switched to kilometers per hour instead of miles.

Well, we drove down (it’s sort of sleeting in Columbia), got slightly unpacked, and then I ran to Wal-Mart. The first cart I picked, of course, had in alignment worse than my car’s, and I was almost unable to wrestle it into moving straight ahead. So I got another cart, and proceeded with my shopping. All went more or less well until I got to the Pringles. Lukas had asked me to buy some for him, and I had to sort through all the weird packaging and labels. Then, in my new semi-healthy phase, and debated buying some fat-free Pringles for myself, and realized with a sense of unfairness that the low-fat versions were double the price of the regular ones! Maybe that’s because of higher production costs, but I doubt it.

I got back from Wal-Mart, put up the groceries, and was ready to rest, completely unaware of the doom descending on me. Never, ever try to flush the toilet and switch the toilet paper role at the same time. Our toilet paper holder is a really cheap metal one that is always falling apart, and the spring sometimes catapults the two metal halves halfway across the room. In this case it hurled one half down the still-flushing toilet and out of sight. I’m sure you can image my horror. OCD people do NOT like to think of putting their hands into toilet water (even clean), not that there was anything to pull out anyway. Oh no, oh no, oh no, I thought, and then added wryly, so much for the money I saved at Wal-Mart. So after calling my dad (and my roommate) in panic, I reached the apartment maintenance guy who said that actually it would probably be fine, since it was just half of the holder. I eyed the other half and the spring as if it was going to leap down the pipe just to irritate me. He had me try flushing it, which worked (!), but then we had to wait for it to fill up to try and flush a wad of paper. Of course it took a century, so we made small talk about the weather, I gave a brief run through of my crazy day, and decided that the adage “a watched pot never boils” also applies to toilet bowls refilling. So, as of 8:50 tonight, I hope all my misadventures of the day are over. But you never know. Maybe the holder’s spring will come attack me in my sleep.