This morning I awoke to a house full of hungry men of the human, feline and canine variety. I was elected Queen of Breakfast, so I put my hair in a ponytail and threw a coat on over my pajamas for a quick trip to get some McBreakfast for Bryan and Joe C. Joe C.'s car was last in the drive, and I was parked next to it on the sidelawn. Using my catlike skills I maneuvered my car around a grove of trees, past his bumper, and directly over a bag of trash and a green garbage can which had fallen over sideways during the night, effectively blocking itself from my view. I didn't notice the trash until I'd backed onto the street and the noise alerted me. So I had to get out and crawl under the bumper to pry the trash can loose. The bag of trash had been deposited in the middle of the road intact, but also in the line of traffic. I did a mini walk of shame around a few oncoming cars to pick up the bag and deposit them both on the curb.

Let me state that I am a good driver and this was an unusual incident. The combination of high back bumper, horizontal camouflaged trash receptacles and my attempting to drive five minutes after waking up was surely the issue.

That was bad. On the way back from McDonalds I realized I had a voice mail from Nicole. It turns out that Laura and Nicole had come to town last night---for some reason I'd misread their emails ALL MONTH LONG and I had blocked all of the 14th off for their visit. I'm not sure how I mistook 4 for 14. I must have looked at the date a dozen times, yet there it was on my google calendar: April 14, Laura & Nicole. At ten in the morning, the last thing you want to feel like is an illiterate bad driver. I was extremely disappointed in myself and really ashamed.

The day was pretty uneventful for the next few hours. Joe C and I talked internet wrestling, he left to go home and Bryan and I did some gardening (arguing), and then I took off for the library and the sto' for some lasagna fixins. For some reason the sto' was packed, and I was in a hurry. I grabbed a large tin of spicy paprika and put it in the cart, not realizing that the lid had rusted off or something. As I placed it in the cart, there was a huge paprika explosion! I wouldn't have been surprised if there had been a "fwooooosh" sound effect. Paprika burst in a red cloud EVERYWHERE! I still needed paprika, so I shifty eyed a little and quickly replaced the broken tin with a new tin, and then looked up to see if I could spot someone with a broom. The entire aisle of people were silent and staring at me with slack jawed expressions on their faces. Including the kids in those carts that look like little cars. Like I'd dare to blow up a tin of spices and just leave it like that, right? Like NO ONE would notice that I was covered in red powder and was making a trail of spicy goodness everywhere I pushed the cart. So I muttered "be right back" and ran up to customer service to explain. The goth girl behind the counter rolled her eyes at me and laughed, and I sort of scooted away with my head down to hide out in the birthday card aisle until it was all cleaned up.

Then some drunk people in line behind me insisted on going through my whole cart full of groceries and commenting on what I was buying while I was getting rung up. I told them that if they were that interested they could offer to pay for some of it, and that sort of shut them up.

I'm still sort of red. Not in the face, but all over my pants from the spice aisle.

I know I've been a little tense lately, but damn.