How to Waste an Entire Day

 

by Pa Rock

Retiree

I had a relatively simple day planned yesterday and I did somehow manage to get a couple of chores completed.  There was a load of dirty dishes in the sink that I tackled and defeated, as well as a load of dirty clothes - including my extra-dirty "mowing" clothes - which I ultimately washed, dried, and put away.  I also managed to publish a simple blog posting, but was unable to devote any time at all to a special writing project that I have been enjoying for the past couple of months.

I had one thing on my list for yesterday that was important to me.  I had learned the day before that a friend had fallen and broken her hip and shoulder, and having suffered through two broken arms in the past three years, I found my friend's injuries to be unimaginable.  Each of my episodes of having a broken arm had left me unable to sleep soundly, in constant low-level pain with sudden jolts into harsher pain, irritable, occasionally angry, and generally hard to be around.  I wanted to send my friend a card and a letter to let her know how badly I felt for her an to offer best wishes for a speedy recovery.

After washing the dishes and the clothes, I headed to town to find a nice get well card, and I located one that I felt was perfect at the feed store.   (Our feed store has THE BEST cards!)  Then I came home and signed the card and addressed the envelope - carefully, because I have a very pronounced hand tremor that makes writing-by-hand both difficult and hard to decipher.  I wrote her a very nice letter at the computer to stuff into the card, but when I went to print the letter I realized the ink cartridge was dry.  Fortunately I had a new one which had just arrived.  My printer, however, is old, and I somehow managed to spring a doo-hickey that holds the cartridge in place, and, long story short, after about an hour of trying was unable to print the letter.

But it was on my laptop and surely to Pete there was someplace in town where I could get it printed.  I went to one such shipping store, but the fellow that runs it told me quickly that he did not have public wi-fi and had no way to get the letter from my computer.  Then I went to the other similar store (my town only has two) they said I would have to email it to them, but I couldn't get their email information and passwords to work.  A store employee tried to help, but it was in vain, and I eventually left.

I went home and carefully penned a short message directly onto the card, and then took it and some others out front to my mail box.  It was not yet two p.m. and the mail normally is picked up around four p.m.  Yesterday, of course, when I got to the mail box, the postman had already come and gone.

At that point I decided to take my collection of cards to town and mail them at the post office.  It turns out, however, that this week is the big local music festival and all of the streets around the post office were blocked off.  There are tents and temporary singing venues all over town.  I drove around for half an hour trying to figure out clever routes to the post office, but all was in vain.

I basically tried from just before noon until nearly four p.m. to mail a card to a friend, but it was just not going to happen.  Today I will try again!

I literally have no idea how I used to find the time to get anything done back in the days before I retired!