ONE HUNDRED TEN…my day was ‘craptastic’. How was yours? Part 2

So far, from what I can tell, Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors was not based on my life, but after today, maybe it should have been. The last time I had a craptastic day was 2 years and 5 months ago.

The start of the day seemed promising! I successfully fed everyone breakfast, made everyone brush their hair and teeth, put clothes on themselves. We all made it outside without tears and mini-dramas…Friday was looking pretty promising. It was going smoothly, until Phoebe, along with her booster seat, tumbled out of the car and landed on her face. And that’s when the story begins…

Poor Phoebe, her pudgy little elbow had a small scrape on it and tears were falling down her sweet chubby cheeks. She just wanted me to hold her, give her hugs and wipe her salty tears away. As soon as I made myself comfortable on the floor of our van, preparing for a long hugging session, she was up laughing and ready to go. It was over as soon as it began.

My only task late this afternoon was to make sure Cecilia made it to her 11:00 orthopedic appointment in West Palm. I left 1.5 hours before her appointment. In what would normally take me a mere 45 minutes to get to the orthopedic’s office, ended up taking a lot longer. I unknowingly chose an alternate route…or in other words, I got completely lost. I went 25 miles on city streets in the wrong direction. la la la…I’m twisting my hair, singing to the song on Cecilia’s DVD and enjoying the breeze coming through my window.

Boom…it’s 20 minutes till her appointment begins. “I got this”, I am thinking to myself. I brought lunch for her, a little book for her to look at and my new pen to fill out the ‘new patient’ form, I am so ready it’s not even funny. I glance down on my GPS, which displayed the name of the street I was on. I then noticed it read, ‘south’ when I was supposed to be going ‘north’. I start sweating. I have pretty good instincts especially when I am doing something I know shouldn’t be doing, so I called my real-life GPS machine and gave the details of my surroundings and the end address. Sure enough, I needed to turn around and drive another 22 miles! Nice job Ang! Way to go! I called the Dr.’s office to inform them, we were going to be 10 minutes late, because like I said before, I did leave early…

Oh but my ‘Comedy of Errors’ doesn’t end with me being 20 minutes late for Cecilia’s appointment. Being late for an appointment wouldn’t necessarily cause me to have a ‘craptastic day’. My GPS wouldn’t pick up the address of the Dr’s office, so I had to call them back…and then my car starts to shake uncontrollably. I pull over into this abandoned car wash place…rear passenger side tire is completely flat. I call the Dr’s office for the 3rd and final time. By now I am sure they think I am a total whack-job…I reschedule the appointment and wait patiently for the tire guy.

As the tire guy is finishing up, I think to myself, ‘I am going to drive by the office building and put it in my address book on my GPS’. I am pulling out of the parking lot and what do you know, we were sitting next to the office building the entire time. Awesome!

So I have to drive 45 miles back to our house on a peewee tire of which I am only allowed to drive 40 miles an hour. My decision to take the turnpike versus US1 may have been ill-advised. I just want to apologize to all the drivers whizzing by me at 80 plus miles an hour. There were  many times during that treacherous ride when the big rigs, small sports cars and sedans were barely missing my car, where a single phrase went through my head,

“Hey driver of the vehicle that almost hit my car with my baby girl inside, there is something in our cars called brakes…sometimes people use them to slow down or stop. You should try to use them every time you take your car out.”

Every time someone would drive by and flip me off, I would turn to them and wave-like a mindless idiot…I learned the move from my trusted spouse…my real-life GPS machine. I don’t know what it does to the driver, but it certainly helps me to relax in a stressful situation. I could engage in a little tit-for-tat, but what’s the point? It only makes a bad situation escalate.

Just stop.

I am so glad it’s all over…goodbye ‘craptastic day’, hello weekend!