24 hours worth of FMLs
You know when people say they’ve had a bad day, they actually mean maybe 6 or 8 hours of badness. Well I can say that I really DID have a bad day, a full 24 hours worth spread over 2 and a half days. Let’s start the clock…
Monday 9th August 2010
07:00am – 08:00am: I open the front door to throw some rubbish into the bin, took one step outside and… what is that smell. I look down and see the likings of feline excrement all over my front porch. And I know exactly which cat it is that has done it, a repeat offender. It may be expending all of its 9 lives very shortly. An hour of scrubbing helped, but the smell is still there and my poor poor shoes took most of the punishment.
12:30pm – 03:00pm: Server cluster was clusterfscked. So much so that none of the resources were accessible, and there was a user acceptance test the next day. I was too busy to deal with it myself so handed it over to my colleague, he now hates clustering. Welcome to my world.
9:00pm – 11.00pm: Hard day at the office, but time to flex my aggression and my sword on my weekly night of fencing. Everything was going well, but during one fight I tried to parry an attack with my coquille (sword guard), which coincidentally pushed my opponent’s sword downward. I was too slow and I essentially helped him stab my own leg. “Are you OK?”…”Oh YES I’m perfectly fine, let’s continue!”. After I got back home, the adrenaline wore off and I felt crippled.
11:00pm – 02:00am: I get home late so I eat dinner late. I thought I would make some BBQ chicken wings for dinner, in the oven it goes. I loaded up StarCraft 2 and proceeded to play, I had my headphones on and the door closed. 30 minutes later my other half charges in and says he can smell burning. Sure enough my entire kitchen is engulfed in smoke, then the smoke alarm went off waking up the entire neighbourhood. I didn’t have dinner that night and I also died in the StarCraft 2 mission since it wasn’t paused. Addtionally, I burnt my arm against the oven from trying to remove the charred wings too quickly.
Tuesday 10th August 2010
08:00am – 09:00am: I ran out of Mountain Dew, again. This, to me, is a very big deal. After fighting through hoards of traffic with people not knowing the existance of indicator lights, I wanted caffeine. I wanted it now. And why do people insist on driving huge cars without knowing how to drive a normal one. Their thought process: Yes I am a mother and I must have the largest car humanly possible, even though I know I have zero spacial awareness of other objects around me, and I have as much navigational sense as a crane fly. But I will still buy one, because I am that awesome. Got to love those “Children on Board” stickers when the driver of the vehicle with said sticker is the hazard. Some people should not be allowed to procreate and it’s a shame Mars can’t be colonised just yet.
10:00am – 11:00am: I choked on a croissant.
11:00am – 04:00pm: It’s amazing how many things can break within 5 hours. We had about 10 hardware defects and for some unknown reason, network cables were being removed at the back of servers. Why?! Who?! Cable elves?! Virtual entities were going missing as well, about 50% of my virtual infrastructure went poof overnight. But I open sesame’ed it back, thank Crunchy. But it wasn’t Friday, sadness.
05:00pm – 05:30pm: After viewing a house, I start to drive away and I hear a grinding noise but it went away after a few minutes. Very ominous; like the sound of the sword falling on the head of Anne Boleyn, it signalled the doom that was to befall me.
Wednesday 11th August 2010
07:00 – 08:00am: I woke up, the worst thing I could have possibly done. This is marked down as an hour because I snooze my alarm clock about 7 times.
08:00 – 08:30am: I try to start the car, and nothing. Foot on brake pedal – check, gears in neutral – check, seatbelt on – check. Turn the key and… still nothing. You definitely need your foot on the brake when starting my car and I was doing that so hmm. Flick through my purse, find the RAC roadside assistance membership card, dial number. “Yes madam, a recovery vehicle will be with you in 2 hours because of traffic in your area”. Fantastic. But at least my car was on my driveway and not stranded in some ditch.
08:30 – 09:30am: Waiting, I hate waiting. I emailed the guys at work and left voicemail messages to tell them of my car problem. After awhile, I decided to watch the third episode of Sherlock. My viewing was disrupted by phone calls and updates about when the RAC will arrive at my house. But lo and behold he turns up. Hooray! Or maybe not hooray.
09:30am – 10:30am: Mr. RAC conclude after extensive taking apart of my car and trying to push-start a semi-automatic with an SMG gearbox (which I did say probably won’t work), that my car is officially fubared. The starter motor is shot to pieces and the grinding from the night before was an indication of its demise. He flicks through his book and says my car cannot be towed. He calls in a truck so my car can be loaded and taken to the nearest garage for repairs. ETA whenever they can arrive, which is most likely another 2 hours. 2 hours of my life I can never reclaim back. Why me Lord, WHY. OK so maybe I took a pad of Post-It notes one time at work and I forgot my mother’s birthday a couple of times. But Jesus Christ give me a break? Please?
10:30am – 01:00pm: More waiting. The truck arrives, quite a nice chap but he had a very bad toothache; his filling had pierced through his tooth and touched sensitive nerves in his mouth. He wasn’t having a good day either. The car is loaded and then taken to the garage for repairs, and he was also kind enough to give me a lift into work. I never did finish that episode of Sherlock, I had placed the BBC iPlayer on pause. I walk into the office, where I am now faced with mocking comments about cars and towing for the next 4 hours. I love work so much.
05:30pm – 06:00pm: The other half picks me up from work so I can get my car and oh look, the height of traffic. Again. That’s why I leave work at 4pm but the repairs on the car took longer than expected, which was also reflected on the bill afterwards. I may be living on instant ramen and Pocky for the next few months.
08:00pm – 08:30pm: After a quick nap I head out to meet with my badminton partner for our usual Wednesday match. I drove around the car park 3 times to find a space and finally I found one, of course after having to wait 15/20 minutes for someone to reverse their car out of the space. Hello eternity. My badminton partner booked the court online the week before but according to the sports centre, no court reservation was found. Double checking then triple checking, still nothing. I really shouldn’t have woken up today.
08:30pm – 09:30pm: We decide to not take a later timeslot and go to Tesco for our food shopping. As I walked to the checkout, I just knew that something bad was going to happen. I mean there was a whole 4 hours or so left of the day. Plenty of time to destroy my life some more. Not only did the barcode scanner broke on the till, but also I disputed the final bill since the discounts did not appear. The scanner was not my fault by the way, the Tesco lady tried to put the discounts through for me manually and try as she might, the computer says no. Meanwhile, a Polish guy with limited English vocabulary tried to buy a bottle of Smirnoff vodka. The till next to me was locked; he then proceeded to place a £10 note on the table and started walking out with the bottle which was security tagged. My lady helper ran after him trying to explain, he finally stopped just short of the alarm sensors. There I am, stood at the broken till, with a bag full of shopping I can’t touch because I can’t pay for it. Half an hour later, I walk away with the goods. I didn’t even scan in my Tesco Clubcard, I wanted to leave while I still had the chance.
I eventually finished watching Sherlock, great episode. I hope that by the time you read this, I am having a better 24 hours.
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