Mama said there'd be days like this...

It started before the day even began. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I woke up like I usually do and got up to go to the bathroom. As soon as I stood up, I doubled over in pain. I had the worst stomach cramp of my life! You know how bad it hurts to get a Charlie horse in your leg – well imagine that in your stomach. In agony, I managed to roll back into bed where I lay in a fetal position afraid to move an inch – for a good half hour at least. I could barely breathe. I couldn’t call Doug either. He has a terrible cough and went to bed upstairs so he wouldn’t keep me awake. I was glad Dr. Mercer had removed my appendix or I would have been seriously worried that it had burst. As it was, I decided that too much fiber in my diet had resulted in a large volume of gas. After a very long time, I was finally able to relax my abdominal muscles and eventually went back to sleep and slept until 9:00 am. I woke up feeling sore around my midsection and not in the least bit hungry. So I decided to do some plumbing.

Yesterday, Doug had started installing a new kitchen faucet to replace the old leaky one. He was interrupted in the middle of this by Daddy, who had loaded his pickup with Mama’s junk, intending to take it to Dan’s second-hand store. Just as he started to drive off, a tire went flat on his truck. Dan came over, and it took all three of them half the afternoon to fix it. Then Daddy wanted us to bring more of Mama’s stuff down from the upstairs in the shop for the next load. I knew Mama was going to be upset by all this, so I hurriedly got things I knew had sentimental value for her and brought them back to our house to put in an upstairs closet. Now this is the same stuff I had spent the hottest week of the summer hauling out to the shop in the first place. Doug and I brought down boxes until Dan’s truck was full. Then Doug got back to work on the faucet. Meanwhile, I was on the phone trying to placate Mama about the loss of her things.

The old faucet would not come off. When Doug and Daddy finally got it off by tearing it to pieces, the new faucet wouldn’t go on. There was a small metal clip that attached the hoses under the sink to the faucet – a very important piece. Doug struggled and struggled to get it on, all the time coughing his poor head off. His back was killing him from lying under the sink so long even though I had stuffed pillows under it. We finally decided he should quit for the night and try again this morning.

I was up before he was. I thought maybe I could get the little metal clip on simply because my eyesight is so much better than Doug’s. So I crawled under the sink and had the same trouble trying to get the clip on. Then I dropped it. I tried to pull it towards me only to see it fall through a tiny crack at the back of the cabinet where it was – and is – irretrievable. “Oh no,” I groaned. “Doug is going to kill me!” I hurried out to the shop to search for one of those magnetic thingies that picks up screws and nails. After searching in vain, I went back to the house to find Doug coming into the kitchen. I confessed to what I had done, and to his credit, he didn’t get mad in the least.

I left Doug eating breakfast without me and drove to the hardware store in Hiawassee hoping to find a replacement part. They didn’t have one. Then I tried Dan’s. No luck. Defeated, I returned home and called the company that made the faucet to request a part. Supposedly, they mailed one out to me. So until it comes, I am without water in my kitchen. We at least put away all the things that had been under the sink, and I took the dirty dishes to the kitchen downstairs. By now it was time for lunch. I really didn’t want to cook, and besides, everything on the menu contained beans, which didn’t seem like a particularly good idea considering the night before. I warmed up some soup.

I left then to go to my painting class, definitely the highlight of my day. It was great, except for getting blue paint all over myself. Last week it was white. I don’t know why I seem to be the only one in the class that can’t paint without getting it all over my person.

After class, I dropped off a prescription for some nasal spray for Doug’s cough. I told the woman Doug had not used the pharmacy before, but he had the same insurance that was on file for me and gave them his birthday. Then I went to the hardware store to buy some new pipes to go under the sink because the old ones weren’t long enough for the new faucet. Now it was time to drive to Murphy to top this wonderful day off with a mammogram – scheduled at 5 pm. After THAT fun experience, I drove to Lowe’s to see if they had the little metal clip so I wouldn’t have to wait for it to come in the mail. I waited and waited for someone to help me only to be told they didn’t have one. Then I drove back to Hayesville to the pharmacy to pick up Doug’s prescription. They hadn’t filled it. “When is his birthday?” the girl wanted to know. I gave it to her, and she went to the back. Then she returned and told me, “He’s never been here before.”

“Yeah, I told the woman that when I dropped it off two hours ago.” I had to go talk to the pharmacist who asked me, “When is his birthday?” After giving someone his birthday for the third time, I waited and waited until finally the prescription was ready. Then I walked over to Hardee’s to order our little thick burgers for supper. I waited while they cooked, and when they were ready, they discovered there were no French fries cooked. So I waited and waited while they cooked the fries. At least they were hot. By now it was 7:00, and the little bowl of soup was long gone. The medium order of fries was a small order by the time I got home. Believe it or not, while driving home I listened to the song that shares the name of this blog post on the radio.

After we ate, I got on the computer only to discover that Doug had deleted the program I needed and had spent 30 minutes downloading yesterday because he didn’t recognize it. Besides that, the printer wasn’t working. While I sat there reloading the software, I absent-mindedly drank what I thought was my coke only to discover it was Doug’s – he with the horrible cough.

At last we settled down to watch a movie we had ordered from Netflix – one of the few I got to pick out, and, you guessed it, the sound didn’t work. So, there was nothing left to do but chronicle this terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.