Disaster-Free Day--Almost

Well, it was a disasterless day at the Drennan corral, and we couldn't be more relieved.

Okay, yeah, there are a few hours of sunlight left, so something could still happen, but we think we have a fighting chance of making it through till Monday without any 911s to plumbers or doctors or mechanics or (fade out sound of Beth chanting list of last week's adversities, afflictions, bales, banes, blights, busts, calamities, cataclysms, catastrophes, debacles, exigencies, fiascos, misadventures, mishaps, reversals, ruinations, setbacks, upsets, washouts and woes.)

Unless you count what happened at the grocery store just now, which I don't think counts, since it has nothing to do with Cowboy Billy except that he was waiting in the car with the three pups when: we parked at WalMart to get a list of about 12 things, only WalMart didn't have two of them, so after waiting in the WalMart line to pay for the ten items, that line being about 8 people long and taking longer than the shopping itself....we then had to go to FOOD LION to get TWO items that were not at WalMart.

So, have you done this? I look in my cart, and with only 2 items, I realize that FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, I QUALIFY for the 12-items-or-fewer-lane. OH, HALLELUJAH!

So I zip into that lane, only to see that some woman (you've met her or one of her clones) has said, "The 12-item rule doesn't apply to ME" and pulled her TWO CARTLOADS of groceries and plopped them on the conveyor belt of the 12-item lane, and looks like she's going to be there for the duration of several presidential administrations, so I mutter under my breath something inappropriate, and I go to the only other lane open.

Which lane has a red-headed woman with approximately 100 items to be checked out.

And I have two.

So I stand there as they check out 100 items.

FINALLY, FINALLY they're finished.

But then the red-headed woman says, "Wait. Did I get FIVE cents off the Orbit gum or only THREE CENTS?" The cashier goes through the tape and says, "Three cents."

"THREE CENTS? It was supposed to be FIVE CENTS! If it's THREE CENTS, then I wish to RETURN THE ORBIT GUM!" says the red-headed lady with all the indignancy she can muster.

"Yes, ma'am," says the cashier. And uses the microphone to call the manager over because she needs the key to return the Orbit gum.

Oh. My. Gosh. I'm starting to get in touch with some angry feelings.

So then the manager sashays over from, I don't know, the farthest reaches of maybe the parking lot? And gives the cashier the key. They do something with the key, and voila! The Orbit Gum From Hell is now RETURNED.

I'm thinking, "FINALLY!"

BUT NO! The cashier says, "Ma'am, you'll have to fill out this form for why you returned the gum."

Oh. My. Gosh. This. Isn't. Happening.

So the red-headed lady takes out a pen and FILLS OUT THE FORM. I'm thinking, "Gosh darn it, I'll buy the ORBIT GUM FOR YOU IF YOU'LL JUST GET OUT OF HERE!"

OKAY, form is filled out.

I think, "Finally!"

Nope.

NOW the red-headed lady reaches in her purse and pulls out approximately 35 carefully clipped COUPONS that pertain to her 100--no, now it's 99-items---that she has just purchased, but she looks smugly cheerful because she knows that by exercising extreme shrewdness and sagacity, she has saved TWO WHOLE PENNIES that were almost wrested from her wallet by some devilish misrepresentation having to do with the Very Evil Product Known As Orbit Gum.

I, myself, am NOT looking smugly cheerful. I am about to grab a magazine about the Royal Wedding and whack merry hell out of someone's head.

But to restrain myself, I simply sigh loudly, and lean over (I'm not kidding) and put my forehead on the hand-bar of my shopping cart, and remain in that half-bowed position, hoping to express the greatest amount of dismay that it is possible to express with simple body language.

But red-head is not deterred in the least by my very evident misery. Not in the least.

The cashier has to check allllllllll the coupons, one by one, and oh, the 25-cents-off-for-crackers one WON'T INTERACT WITH THE LASER so she has to fool with that one.

When said cashier is finished with said coupons, she says to the lady, "You saved a dollar ninety-eight with your coupons."

A DOLLAR NINETY-EIGHT?????????????

I am now breathing fire. I am thinking through every slogan I've ever heard in any 12-step program, in order to keep from pulling a dollar ninety-eight out of my wallet and throwing it into the HAIR of this madwoman in front of me.

Then she leaves.

By the time I get to the car, I look like I've been wandering in the Gobi desert for weeks. I throw my tiny little bag of two items into the car. Bill says, "You look upset. Did something happen?"

"Oh, noooooooooo," I said. "Just a little delay in the checkout lane."