One Woman Ranting

I knew when I didn’t wake up early to pee today that something wasn’t quite right. My sister usually chalks up days like these to Mercury being in retrograde, but I don’t know what that means, nor would I believe in it if I did. I do believe in Murphy’s Law and bad luck and when it rains it pours. Except sometimes it doesn’t pour, it just gets misty and starts and stops and is generally irritating. That’s how today was.

My massage I had scheduled for today was cancelled. I know, I know, first world problems. But still, it was my massage. The italics are to let you know to read that sentence as a whine. My massage therapist had some bullshit reason like a scheduling issue, and cancelled my appointment with about two hours’ notice. Can you imagine calling off your massage with two hours’ notice? I’m sure you’d have to pay for it anyway, just like you would at the doctor’s office. If Starbucks fucks up your coffee order, they will occasionally give you a card for a free drink. I should get an extra fifteen minutes tacked onto my rescheduled appointment.

Since I had a block of free time, I decided to make a coffee cake from scratch to take to the gym in the morning. One of the fitness instructors has been out for a long time following one of those freak accidents that you hear about on the news: Woman injured as SUV rolls out of driveway is expected to make a full recovery. Well, tomorrow’s her first day back to torturing us at the gym after her ribs knit themselves back together, and what better way to commemorate it than a coffee cake?

So I baked a beautiful cake from scratch with a ribbon of cinnamon, brown sugar, and walnuts through the middle. I set it on the counter to cool for ten minutes before taking it out of the cake pan. I placed the wire rack on top of the cake pan and flipped it. Instead of setting the cake down on top of the rack, I dumped the whole thing on the counter. The cake cracked open like a delicate piñata, spilling its cinnamon walnut layer all over the counter. I picked up the salvageable pieces and put them back in the pan, then swept the rest into a giant crumb pile which then went in the garbage. Then I said some bad words and went upstairs to shower.

 

 

 

During my shower, the doorbell rang. It was UPS! I had five packages waiting on my doorstep, the bounty of my Cyber Monday activities. I opened four of the packages without incident, but the fifth one was a doozy. It was one of those thick plastic bags that doesn’t have any perforation, so you just have to hack at it with scissors hoping to force an opening somewhere. I hacked all right, right through one of the shirts. Merry Christmas, kid! Don’t look at the back of your shirt where I cut an extra hole. What makes it even worse is that I spent literally two hours on that website, the most user unfriendly website on all of Al Gore’s invention, trying to buy a goddamn t-shirt. A one of kind t-shirt, as in cannot be reordered or replaced. I sat down immediately to email the company to complain about their packaging. After I sent it, I checked over the rest of the shirts and realized I ordered the wrong size on a different one, which is for the same person as the shirt that I nicked.  

The best part of the day, stolen from me. My cake, nay, my talent for baking, lay in so many hunks on the counter. My carefully planned and chosen gifts a tattered and missized reminder to check my order before placing it. Is the universe trying to tell me something?

Perhaps it was all coincidence. Perhaps it’s time for me to slow down and take my time. Perhaps I am getting old and less careful. Perhaps I am losing my touch. Or maybe, perhaps today just sucked, and it has nothing to do with me.