I am in a foul mood this morning. The "Bring the car in as soon as we open and we will fix it first, it will only take 20 minutes" turned into an hour-and-a-half wait - where I could observe mechanics and other employees loitering around the garage, smoking, talking, laughing, and drinking coffee.

Finally, at 9, I stuck my head in and as cheerfully as I could manage, said "If it's going to take much longer, could I call someone to come get me and take me to work? There are things I need to be getting done."

They said they'd start on it right then. It took them fifteen minutes ONCE THEY STARTED.

I tried to do some of my daily research-reading in there, but about 1/2 hour into my wait, someone came in and switched on one of those inane morning shows (where they flip topics so crazily - one minute it was the effect of a partner's emotional abuse on women, the next it was a damn dress with a built-in girdle to make women look slimmer. Goes up 'as high as' a size 12, the chirpy announcer said, but that it was 'really' for sizes 2 through 4. The hell? If I were a size 4 I certainly would not consider myself as needing a spandex lined dress to "hold stuff in." (when you're a 4, what is there that needs holding in?) I'm sorry but I just take those shows as a sign that the Apocalypse is upon us - how can you go from horrific tales about a husband saying "I wish you'd die in your sleep" to his wife IN FRONT OF THEIR CHILDREN to a fluff piece about some dress that makes the standard of beauty even more unattainable for the average woman, without suffering some kind of cognitive dissonance?). There was also pop-country muzak playing. Now, don't get me wrong - I like a lot of the old-time, hardcore, "real" country which was played by folks who actually knew how to play an instrument and who cared about the music more than the money they were making. But the poppification of country makes my teeth itch. It's basically soft rock with a southern drawl and maybe slightly different subject matter.

So I'm in a really foul mood today, considering that what was essentially my "personal" time for the day was spent sitting in what must be the loneliest and most depressing place outside of a doctor's office or hospital - the waiting room at a mechanic's.

When I went to pay and found that I had forgot to put a new set of checks in my checkbook (and thus, had to put it on the credit card), I just started to cry. That was how fed up I was at that point.