6 Reasons Why This Is A Crappy Week

My week is crappy. Here's why.

1. The heater is broken in my van, as in it blows cold air. Because it is fall in the Ozarks, it wasn't a problem today, when it was unseasonably warm and humid and horribly windy and I had to turn the a/c on, but earlier this week? Cold. Inside the van. Outside the van. Cold. And we don't have a garage, so it sits outside and gets colder and colder. I'm guessing a kerosene heater is a bad idea, so it looks like YET ANOTHER trip to the mechanic, to whom I suggested he give us a punch card and maybe offer us a free sandwich or something after our 10th visit. We're already halfway there.

2. Pittsburg State University, which is about 40 minutes away from here, announced a week ago that President Bill Clinton would be the first speaker in a series they were debuting in their new Center for the Arts. And the seats would only be $40! I was beyond excited. President Clinton is the first president that I voted for who actually won the election. Tickets went on sale Monday morning at 8:30 a.m., and I WAS ON IT. I was hitting the box office website at the stroke of 8:30 (and I tried at 8:28, just in case it was already open, and it wasn't). And I continued to try to order my tickets for 30 minutes, only to get messages saying there weren't two seats available together, and interspersing it with unanswered phone calls to the box office, until the website displayed the message that it was sold out. Not. Cool. I heard on the news that students, who could buy one ticket for $10, had bought up tickets and were selling them for upwards of $500. Why isn't ticket scalping illegal? Why? Why? The artist or speaker or team doesn't make a dime off of scalped tickets; only the asshole scoundrel who is selling them does. SHAME ON THOSE OF YOU WHO PREVENTED PEOPLE WHO REALLY WANTED TO HEAR THE PRESIDENT SPEAK FROM BUYING TICKETS! You know who you are. May karma have its way with you.

3. My daughter is in a mood this week. Think about, oh, The Exorcist, and you'll get the idea. Or a wet cat. A wet, angry cat. 

4. Speaking of cats that I have apparently pissed off, I managed to ruin Ruby's favorite game this week by using her arena for a bath. Several weeks ago, my husband was shaking out a pair of shoes he hadn't worn for a long time (we have brown recluse spiders, so it's a necessary precaution) over the bathtub when a 1" diameter bouncy ball fell out of the toe and bounced around the bathtub (we also have toys and other treasures in our shoes, so, again, a necessary precaution). The sound of the ball bouncing around inside the tub (a rather large jacuzzi tub and the sole reason I wanted to buy this house 17 years ago) brought Ruby running, and a new game was born. She would bat the ball all around the tub, fielding it as it ricocheted off the sides of the tub. She herself would run and slide on her hip around the tub as well, and she added a new element when she knocked a plastic cup (I keep it on the side of the tub to help rinse it out after using it) into the tub and incorporated it in her game. Bathtub Ball was a wild game, very noisy, and tremendously fun; that is, until I decided to take a long, soaky bubble bath the other night. Ruby watched me remove the cup and ball from the tub first. After my bath, I rinsed all the bubbles out and even dried the inside of the tub with a towel, but she acted like the inside of the tub would burn her if she got in, and she hasn't played a game of Arena Bathtub Ball since. And all those times I said to myself, "I should take a video of her doing this"? Yeah, I didn't.

5. I have a cold. A nasty, snotty, coughy, headachy, feverish cold with intermittent sore throat and ear ache. Of course, my cold has a name (not a preschooler this time), but I'm not upset with the kid who gave me the cold. He couldn't help it; he is a special needs child who is mostly non-verbal. I'm not happy with his mother, who brought him to church knowing he was sick. I used a lot of hand sanitizer that morning when I was with him (and he was wiping snot on his sleeves and, it seems, me), but within 24 hours, I had a headache (you know the kind, when you're trying to decide if it's just a headache or if you're actually coming down with something), a few hours later, my throat was sore, and a few hours after that, the cold symptoms began in earnest. KEEP YOUR CHILDREN HOME WHEN THEY'RE SICK, PEOPLE.

Every drop of fluid in my body is going into snot production, and I can't get enough to drink, but it hurts my throat when I swallow. My upper lip is puffy from blowing my nose, and my eyes look like two holes burnt in a blanket. I'm a sight to behold.

6. Did I mention that I didn't get tickets to go see President Clinton? 

Completely devastated

Crap, crap, crappy week.