Day 217 – Calamity Jane

Following an indulgent few weeks, I need to get my shit together and get a bit healthier again.

I start my Monday with a bowl of homemade granola and yogurt (even though it has dark chocolate chips in it). I manage to hold back on the morning snacks and enjoy a not-so-healthy-but-super-tasty bacon, egg and hash brown sandwich on brown bread, followed by an orange Twirl (obvs).

Lunchtime is a brisk walk to the shop, enjoying the crisp, Autumn air with the warm sun beating down on me. Sunglasses on, I stuff my pockets with my loyalty card, debit card and shopping list. It is only a 7 or 8 minute walk, but it is enough to get my blood pumping and to feel as if I have had some exercise.

I arrive at the shop door and realise I have not packed a face mask.

FFS.

Now, this is where I have a “Sliding Doors” moment.  If ONLY I had turned around, walked home and picked up my mask. Things could have been so different….

But in that split second, I choose to buy a mask from the store. And here, my experience unravels.

I enter the store, covering my mouth with my hand and swipe the disposable mask packet through the self-service. They are light and do not register, so I press down on the counter and magically it works. I pull out my loyalty card (every little helps!) and am greeted with a gift aid card for the local charity shop. Ugh. I don a mask and stuff the rest in my pocket, pressing the screen for my receipt, so I don’t look like a shoplifter. I am a millisecond too late and the machine tells me there will be no receipt printed. I just sigh.

I position myself back at the shop entrance and sanitise my hands. At some point, my shopping list has vanished, so I search outside and back near the till, but to no avail. Basket in hand, I choose something for our dinner and try to recall some of the other items we need.

Self-service again, so I beep my items through and get stuck on a chocolate bar (is this a sign, you ask?!) and despite several tries, I give up and take my half-packed bags to a manned till. The elderly gent in front of me is buying 240 cigarettes, all separate packets. He is as deaf as a post, so the transaction takes a while.

I finally reach my destination and of course there is yet another problem. I am hot, flustered and in a right dither, when my card is declined. Jesus, what next? After my third attempt, the equally-as- stressed-out cashier realises that there is a connection issue.

I am more than relieved to get home in one piece.  Later that night I regale my story to Darren as I sip on a double gin.

*****

The drama continues on Tuesday.

Let’s just say I have already told the tumble drier to fuck off by 08:17.

I wait all morning for a delivery and an hour after it is due, I re-read the email to discover it should arrive between 08:23 – 12:23 TOMORROW.  I swear, I woke up feeling positive and not remotely like today would be a disaster.  But everything is clearly against me.

By 13:45 I have consumed a Turkish Delight out of sheer frustration.

I have taken a longer lunch specifically to drive to Blandford and get two new front tyres. I arrive to a group of lads eating their sandwiches, and they promptly dust off their crumbs and look official as I drive into the empty garage. Within minutes they are crowded round the car and ready to take off the wheel.

But the wheel locking nut is nowhere to be found.

At one point there are four of us searching my car – every pocket or secret compartment – and all we find is a disabled loo key (for my Crohns Disease bum) and several sausage roll pastry flakes. I ring Darren and he agrees that it should be in the car, so I apologise profusely for the inconvenience and the lovely tyre peeps just tell me this happens all the time. We deduce that it is probably lurking on a shelf in the Vauxhall garage, where my MOT was done in July.

Holy guacamole. What a day!

When I get home, I put on my comfy PJS and pray to the Internet gods that no one wants to video call me this afternoon, because my face is sweaty and flushed and I have taken off my bra. Not to mention the bits of chocolate that are smudged around my chops.

*****

I spend most of the evening wiping down my car (because the garage chaps are not in my bubble) and searching for the ever-elusive unlocky thing. Having tidied the house numerous times during lockdown, I am 99.9999999% sure it is not here.  Darren and I discuss the tyre situation at length, but come to no conclusion, and I end up getting all hangry and order a pizza.

Apparently our new internet hub should be arriving tomorrow…why am I not hopeful that it will all go smoothly….?