Monday Monday

Yesterday was Monday. Thank goodness Mondays are officially limited to one per week. It started out fine. I went for a walk. I wanted to get back into the walking/jogging habit, but there's always so much to do when I get back from a vacation that it usually takes me at least a week to get back into my regular routines. Yesterday was the first "back to normal" day.

As I came through the door I heard the phone ringing. It was Mark. He had forgotten his computer. I would have to deliver it to him in Allen. Even though it is 70% expressway it still takes over an hour to get there and back. So much for being in front of the computer when the markets opened. But it wasn't critical. I didn't have any positions that required a quick exit and the stocks I wanted to sell calls on could wait. No big deal.

So I loaded his computer in the car, grabbed my purse and my phone. Oops. It appears that I forgot to plug the phone into the charger on Sunday night and it was down to 10% battery. It would have to do.

I set off for the tollway when I realized that we drove the PT Cruiser downtown on Friday and it was out of gas. I looked and the needle was below the E. I turned back toward the Shell station. A bad habit! The Shell station closed several months ago for remodeling and hasn't reopened yet. I didn't think I could make it to Brookshire's so I headed for Bobcat Country and the highest priced gas in town.

I made it into Bobcat Country and pulled up to the pump. I couldn't remove the gas cap. I had the car inspected last Tuesday and they put a new gas cap on it because the old one didn't pass the inspection. (How does that happen?) As I moaned about my inability to get the cap off the nice man at the next pump asked what was wrong. "It's a new cap and I can't get it off." Fortunately, he could. But now I could see that they didn't actually affix the tether to the new cap the way they told me they did. I started visualizing leaving it on top of the gas pump.

I'm visualizing disaster, worrying about being late and somehow in all my frustration over the gas cap, I managed to press the buttons on the pump in the wrong sequence. I got a message that I would have to pay the cashier. I didn't want to pay the cashier! I wanted to pay at the pump! I'd just come back from an hour's walk/jog. I was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I wasn't wearing any make-up and it was still too early for sunglasses. I didn't want to go in the store.

But I had to. There was a big line at the register, so I had to wait a bit. And of course I got to see several people I knew. Worst of it was, they got to see me. Yikes!

In the end, the kid had to come out to the pump. He said my card was declined. "No, I just pushed the buttons in the wrong order." He reset it, it took my card and I pumped my gas. I was only 30 minutes behind schedule.

As I started driving away from Bobcat there was a strange haze that seemed to covered the entire town of Celina. For some reason, fog was rising. There hadn't been any fog when I went for my walk. There hadn't been any fog when I first set off a half hour before. Where had the fog come from? When I got out of town I could see it rising off the fields and becoming so thick that it was hard to see where to turn.

The fog stayed with me until I got on the tollway south of US 380 and then it was gone. Fortunate, because most people on the tollway don't actually slow down just because they can't see.

The rest of the trip was easy. I drove straight to it. And Mark came right out to collect his computer - didn't make me come find him. He even gave me breakfast money since we'd used all of my cash in the parking garage downtown, and by that time I was starving.

The rest of the day was fine! I just hope this was the only Monday I'll have this week.