Truth

In life, I know this much is true:

• The cash register will break just as I get to the front of the line.
• If I'm wearing white, the meal will be tomato-based.
• At least one piece of glassware or furniture will be crushed during a family gathering.
• The intended recipient of my quick note will walk up just as I'm concluding the message.
• The minute the lotion sinks in, there will be occasion for me to wash my hands thus rendering my skin-softening efforts null and void.

Oh Baby

We just shuffled another submittal out the door at Office, and I'm still sort of numb from scrambling for weeks and weeks. I worked another 40 hours last week - that's in 4 days because Monday was Labor Day. Haven't had any wacky adventures (unless you consider wacky and/or adventurous to be sitting on the office lobby floor in a dress swapping the contents of 2" and 3" binders as executives walk by and make inane comments ("You look comfortable! Hardee Har!" Um, no, I'm in a skirt on the floor with my legs twisted in unnatural directions so that I don't pull a Britney as I do menial labor so that YOUR ass looks good when we submit these docs to the client!)) lately, I suppose except for last Saturday.

I was going to a baby shower for friends Jen and Mike. Husband and I are thrilled for them - they'll be outstanding parents and we know they're over the moon. In the midst of clawing my way through back-to-back submittals, I managed to carve out enough time to peruse their Babies R Us registry and order a cute present for them: an adorable pink bouncer (you put the baby in the bouncer so that they're occupied and in a safe place while you're folding laundry, doing dishes, talking on the phone, what have you). BRU is close enough to our house that normally I'd go pick something up, but that was just not reasonable with my schedule the way it was, so FedEx it is!

I should have found the time. BRU apparently is very committed to minimizing consumer waste as evidenced by the fact that they don't even package their items for shipment. They just slap shipping labels on the original box and out it goes. The present arrived in a box so dirty and beat up, I was embarrassed to offer it to my friend, but my options were pretty limited at that point. The contents were still safe - no unusual rattling sounds - so it would have to do. Jen would of course understand, and BRU would get a nastygram in their Customer Comments.

I had planned to go to Party City after work last week (the four-day week after Labor Day) to pick up some cute baby girl wrapping paper or a nice gift bag. However, as I mentioned earlier, I was working pretty hard core last week. I'd get home, exhausted, and think to myself I'll go tomorrow. This happened every day, but I was sure I'd have time on Friday because I was giving my document to Kwik Kopy on Friday. With the document safely in their hands, I could relax, rest, get the wrapping materials, and be ready to simply enjoy myself over the weekend.

I did not count on working until 10 pm on Friday. Needless to say, I could not go to Party City. I said to myself, Okay, I'll go tomorrow morning and get back in time to package it up nicely.

The day of the shower arrived, and in my usual form, time escaped me. Google Maps tells me it's only about 35 minutes to the shower location, so I gave myself about an hour to include a dash through Party City. In some uncharacteristic stroke of genius, I stuffed a pair of scissors and a roll of tape in my purse "just in case."

I get to Party City. I find the bag - very cute, Baby Tigger hugging Baby Pooh Bear. I find enough pink tissue paper to sink a ship. I take it out to my car and go to put the present in the bag.

IT DOESN'T FARKING FIT! I kid you not. Sideways, Longways, Diagonal. Nothing. The box is a full 4 inches too big for the bag. I storm back into Party City not 2 minutes after I left it. The clerk who rang me up looks puzzled. I toss, "Didn't fit," over my shoulder, not missing a step. I grab the biggest roll of pink baby paper I can find, a big lavender bow (gotta keep in proportion), and march back over to the registers. Same girl checks me out, offering apologetic looks in my direction.

This is how we find me standing in the parking lot of Party City in a skirt and heels in bright sun and 95+ degree temperatures, trying to wrap a present on the trunk of my car. I must say, for a three-minute do in some of the worst conditions possible, I think I did a hell of a job. The wrapping was neat and clean, nothing tore, and to the untrained eye, it looked like Fed Ex hadn't chewed it up and spit it out.

Okay, I'm ready! The present and all paper scraps are in the car, I'm in the car, the key's in the ignition, and... I don't have enough gas to get me where I need to go. And it's 11:35. And the party's at noon. What else could I do? I booked it over to the nearest gas station, filled the tank, and exceeded the speed limit all the way to the shower.

I only got there about 15 minutes late, but due to the winding nature of the roads in the area of the party, I wasn't the last to arrive! Furthermore, friend Kathy reassured me that all the boxes in the store looked like that when she went through BRU, so even if I had managed to get there in person, I wouldn't have found a better looking box. Huzzah!

Missing Person: Found

If anyone's been wondering where I've been this past month (minimal bloggage, no email responses, rare callbacks), I'll sum it up this way: in the last pay period, I worked 139 hours. The normal corporate workweek is 40 hours, or 80 per pay period. Yeah, that sucked.

I would like to thank ever-patient Husband for his understanding, sympathy, readiness with a bottle of wine, and willingness to drive all the way to my office to bring me dinner when I pulled a 17-hour day.

I would like to thank Awesome Admin Merideth for not only being my own personal enforcer when the office ass-hats tried to take advantage of me, but also for jumping in and actually taking tasks away from me because, let's face it, I suck at delegating and my control-freakishness cannot permit me to ask anyone else to do something to help me out.

In contrast, I would like to light Evil Coworker on fire for his contributions to my own personal hell. I used to just not like him. However, my sentiments in recent days have crossed the line to pure unadulterated hatred.

I am wiped out, I am exhausted, my brain is pretty well fried, and I think I've developed a permanent hunch from slouching over my computer for a month. But it's over. The submittal is gone, it's out of my hands, and I'd like to put it all behind me now. Not to trivialize, but I suppose this is what it feels like to be released from a hostage situation.