Some days my life is such a comedy of errors....

I started this morning out so motivated. I was out of bed on time, ready to leave the house early, figured I could get into school early and try to knock out some grading before class. And then I walked out the door.

Fiasco 1 - flat tire. What do I find when I walk into the garage but a completely flat tire, the kind of flat you can't even drive the block to the gas station to put some more air in. So, although part of me is thinking that it's a good thing I'm out the door early, the other part is just grumbling in general. But I break out the spare and jack and get to work on it. Positively, I don't have trouble with any of the lug nuts - last time I had to change a tire it took forever to get one of them loosened, but this time they all came off pretty easily. No trouble with getting the car jacked up. In fact, things were going pretty swimmingly until....

Fiasco 2 - pack of friendly, enthusiastic dogs. People are suppose to keep their animals under control, of course, but hardly anyone in the neighborhood does. I do live in a very rural area, and generally I find the love of animals out here to be part of the charm. But sometimes several people's dogs join up for a week or so of terrorizing the neighborhood. They're all friendly, so I never fear for my bodily safety - but they're big, often muddy, so-happy-to-see-you dogs that it can be challenging to get away from. And just as I've got the car jacked up, here they come. Suddenly, I've got dogs standing on top of me and licking me all over the place and generally being a royal nuisance. And for some reason I'm wearing white capris today, which now sport several muddy paw prints. Not only am I dirty, and being treated to dog breath, and getting slimed (get the iodine!), but I'm still trying to get the spare tire on. It gets done eventually, but it is now too late for me to get to class - it's a 50 minute drive normally, but with the max on the donut it would be 10-15 minutes longer, plus I have to change clothes and clean up a bit. This is probably a good thing, though, right? Because with the early class cancelled, I should have time to get the tire repaired or replaced and still make it to my afternoon class....

Fiasco 3 - Walmart. I get to Walmart at 9:45. My second class isn't until 1:30, so as long as I'm out of there by 12:15 I should be fine. The guy says it's a little busy, might take up to a couple of hours to finish. I could drive around looking for a quicker place, but that involves more driving on the donut and I'm already there. So I decided to risk it. Bought myself a silly little novel to pass the time. Ate at McDonalds when I got hungry. Finished the novel. Sat in the little Walmart waiting area till my rear end was numb. Cancelled class when noon rolled around and my car wasn't even in the tire bay yet. Finally, at 2:10, check out of Walmart. (In positive news, they were able to repair the tire, so at least it was only $10.)

Fiasco 4 - getting gas on the way home. So I stop for gas on the way home, and I'm just standing there while it pumps not really paying much attention. I mean, they stop when the tank's full right? Not today. As I'm staring off into space I suddenly hear splattering sounds and feel something pouring on my feet. This would be because the pump has not turned off, even though my tank is quite obviously completely full. I got it turned off as quickly as I could, of course, but probably lost $1 worth of gas on the ground as it was pumping full speed. And my feet and sandals are drenched. I figured I should go in and let them know at the station so they can get it fixed. And I was very nice! I didn't demand they pay me back for the spilled gas or gripe about my shoes. I just told them the auto-shut-off didn't seem to be working on pump 6 and I wanted to let them know about it. And the woman behind the counter looks at me and says (rather rudely and aggressively I thought), "You must not have hooked it up right." Excuse me? It's pumping gas - how tough is it to stick the nozzle in the hole? But I just said that I've been pumping gas for some time now, and I'm pretty sure the problem is with the pump and not me. And then she says "Well, you're suppose to stay at the pump and monitor it. We're not liable for this." I have to confess I lost my temper a bit here. It was a long morning, and I hate having to cancel classes for personal reasons, and while I always try not to take my frustrations out on service employees I figured she had earned herself an exception to this rule by being ridiculously rude to me first. (Even then, all I said was that I was standing right there, I wasn't asking them to assume liability, I simply wanted to warn them of the problem before it happened to anyone else as I assumed they generally like to keep their customers happy and coming back - but I was pretty loud and definitely sarcastic of tone.) This brought the manager out of the back, who was very conciliatory. He probably just thought I was some crazy customer, but it made me feel better anyway.

So now I'm home, and I'm not going anywhere else today (or all weekend, for that matter!) so that nothing else can happen!