One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

Sigh. Ever have one of those days when you don't know if you should laugh or cry? That is today to a tee. I tend to dislike Tuesdays as it is, because they can be so frenetic and I never see Don for more than ten minutes in the morning (if I'm lucky). We both seem to run in opposite directions on Tuesdays. I guess, for some people that's everyday. But, that's not the point of my post. The day started out ok enough. I got a bonus at the bank (Surprise! Surprise!) and I got to draw docs all morning which is my favorite bank task. I came home and worked on some stuff for our 6th grade retreat at church. Things were nice and peaceful. Then I left for church... We got a last minute "DVD" from an Army recruiter for our session on Veterans Day that was to take place tonight. So, here we are at 5:15 checking out a DVD that's supposed to play around 6:30. I don't do well with this kind of stuff at all. I like to have things planned and ready way earlier than this. The problem was that the recruiter didn't give us a DVD. He gave us a CD with a music video on it. Needless to say, we couldn't play it through the DVD player as planned. Thank goodness I had my lap-top and Chaz was there for a few minutes to walk me through hooking it up to the projector. (You learn something new everyday.) It projected through to the screen just fine, but we didn't have any audio output, so I had to crank the volume on the laptop so that there was actual music to go along with the images. Kinda' goofy, but problem solved and my stress began to subside.

Next the kids start showing up. Usually, they spend the time before class playing the games in the Youth Lounge and visiting while the team gets organized. I walked to my office for two seconds and returned to a broken ping-pong table in the corner of the Youth Lounge. Those of you who know the Tuesday kids probably only need one guess. If you can't figure it out, check my post entitled Full Disclosure. Of course, I was livid. Supposedly, it was a tripping accident. Unfortunately, no one actually saw what happened. Sigh. So, now we have a broken ping-pong table, a High School Youth Minister demanding a replacement, angry parents and a kid in a lot of hot water. Joy. Thankfully, Debbie was there to take care of calling the parents. I'm not very comfortable with that yet. I did gain some insight into the student tonight, though. I can share that later with anyone (Lisa) who may be interested. Other than that, the class went very well. Fr. Jerry came to talk to the kids about veterans and his experiences in the military. He took it so seriously, that he actually came in his uniform that he hasn't worn since the early 90s. That was a great moment. Of course, we got pictures.

Finally, all the students and team were gone, so I could go home and chill. I had an eighth of a tank of gas left, so uncharacteristically I decided to fill up before I made it to E. In my frazzled state from the day's events so far, would you believe that the next appropriate thing to do was to lock my keys in the car?! I couldn't believe it. There I was pumping gas and holding my cell phone, ATM card, church keys but no car keys. Big deal, right? Call your husband and have him unlock the door with your spare set of keys. Wrong. Don has Second City on Tuesday nights and was in the middle of his show. Thank God for dads! My dad actually helped with class tonight and kept feeling like he wasn't much of a help, so I was glad to restore confidence in his usefulness. He didn't actually have a key for my car, but did happen to have an old slim jim that my great grandfather had bought eons ago. After ten minutes or so of playing around with it, the lock finally popped. Yippee! I could finally go home! At least the dogs were there. A few swigs of libation didn't hurt either. I'm still stewing over a few things, but I suppose I will live to see another day. Let's hope that tomorrow is awesome.