a series of unfortunate decisions

Looking back, I think the day's first mistake might have been my answering emails, checking facebook, and sitting around at breakfast instead of practicing cello before my lesson this morning. Or at least running through my assignment once or twice, you know, since I hadn't really practiced anything worth mentioning since last week's lesson.

(Don't look at me like that ... I had my reasons. Good ones. Like funerals and being out of state and helping clean up our yard after a massive storm.)

Turns out, though, that music teachers like their students to have practiced (or at least looked at) their songs between lessons. Interesting philosophy. Maybe I should try it out on my piano students. Yes, I have students.


For a little while, things went ok - until I decided to sit in the car and read during Cami's and Keegan's music lessons, and to do our Wal-Mart/Subway run after all three of us were finished. I had appointments to keep later this afternoon, but we had such a short shopping list, what difference could it really make? And I was enjoying my book and the sunshine on my face, so very much.

Turns out, I miscalculated the time required. But what else is new?

Inexplicably, it seems also to have been a baddish decision to eat my half of a foot-long sandwich while charging unconcernedly down the highway. I've done it before with unmitigated success, but today my shirt and I stumbled away at the end, weary and battle-stained.

The unfortunate consequences of these various decisions followed in my wake all afternoon (consisting mostly of persistently snowballing hurriedness and lateness).

Then I had to take my brother to his C.A.P. meeting in the evening. I blazed onto the yard just in time, and we blazed back off of it, a bit late. Keegan wanted to drive ... but I considered the time of day, and I considered the size of town to which we ventured, and I considered his youth ... and I said, "Eh, I'll drive." And for various reasons (familiarity being key), I took my way to our destination, instead of his suggested route. It should have worked, and it would have, except for the detour.

We did make it to town, but Keegan hadn't eaten supper yet, so we made a lightning-quick stop at McDonald's before I dropped him off. Missed the parking lot entrance, made a U-turn at Hy-Vee, almost t-boned an old lady poking around in search, presumably, of a safe place to park. Strangely, it was Keegan, and not the old lady, that subsequently almost died of a heart attack.

Of course he was late to his meeting, and went in finishing his fries. Poor guy.

I took advantage of the three ensuing hours by eating supper, then tooling around town in search of a Wal-Mart. Finally stopped for directions at Casey's, found out I was a block and a half from my heart's desire, and had even been heading the right direction.

But I bought a new laptop! My old laptop had been accidentally mauled by a sibling some weeks ago, so when Dad informed me of the existence of a relatively inexpensive one at this location, I thought, you know, you only live once. Sadly, my phone perished in the midst of tonight's decisive, aisle-pacing discussion, so I made up my mind on my own, and wrote the check.

After departing from the store and parking elsewhere, I found evidence on the receipt that I had not, in fact, been given full advantage of the advertised sale price. "Ah, well," I thought, "Wal-Mart is open 24 hours. I'll go back in a bit and get my $20 back." I wanted to open up my new gizmo and try it out. So I did. It was pretty cool. And new and stuff.

Later, when I returned to interrogate Wal-Mart's Customer Service representative (not before entering and exiting the store three separate times, for stupid reasons), it was eventually discovered that the previously mentioned "sale price" secretly applied only to the display model. I could pack mine back up and exchange it for the cheaper one if I so desired, she said, but her tone wasn't particularly encouraging.

And I was just like, you know, whatever. Not that I said that out loud, or even felt particularly grumpy about it. On days like these, you reach a point where you can't really be miffed anymore, and as the hours tick by it's just amazing - not to mention amusing - that you're still alive.

And that was about it. I'm going to let today's second-to-last mistake be the posting of this monstrous dissertation. And the very last will be, I think, my staying up long enough to still pointlessly proofread it afterward. I'll sleep when I'm dead.