[Expletive deleted] horrible day!

Well, things went downhill fast after I successfully voted. The whole day has been largely a waste.

First off, I went to have some photocopies made for some committeework I'm in charge of. No one in the administration wants to own up to the fact that someone somewhere in an office that is not my departmental office, is supposed to pay for the copies. It is committeework, not departmental work. My department's copy budget is overstretched already and it is not their obligation.

So I got the run-around, and even though the copies have been made, it's not at all clear who's going to pay for them. Possibly me, out of my own pocket.

Second, after calling about my allergy shot, I went over there (okay, so I was five to ten minutes later than I said I would be, due to the run-around), and the nurse had left. To go vote. Now, I applaud that, but since she was expecting me, and since there's supposed to be a high turnout....anyway, I left, ran a few other errands, and walked back there. I probably walked 3 miles on top of my regular exercise today, my campus is very spread out.

And now, the worst: I do not have a furnace that will work. Not until I get an electrician in. Or so the furnace guy says. He claims that work the electric company did on lines near my house somehow messed up the voltage or the breaker box or something, and I need an electrician to do a couple things. He recommended someone, which I don't know to trust or to be suspicious of. This air-conditioning and heating guy has been very good in the past, so I hate to think he's giving me a bum steer.

So I called the electrical company to find out if it's even remotely possible, what the heating guy said. The woman took my information and said someone would call me, possibly in the next 24 hours, to send someone out to check. (I shouldn't even be on the internet now - I have dial-up and they might try to call. But I need to get this out or I'm going to punch a hole through the wall). I ask if I need to cancel my classes for tomorrow. The response is that it's up to me, they'll try to notify me.

(Insert sound of grinding molars here).

So I call my office and ask the secretary their policy on cancelling class for such things. She says if I have to, I have to, that there's no problem. But I don't like the idea of it. I don't like it at all. It feels frivolous. It feels like I should have someone to wait at my house in my place while I go to do the job I'm paid for, even though it felt like everyone I came into contact with today wasn't doing the job they were paid for....

And now, I have no decent food in the house. But I can't run out to Wal-Mart, because what if the electrical company guy calls? And I'm wondering if I do risk the run out to Wal-Mart, should I buy an electric space heater so I don't freeze in my house tonight when it gets down in the forties and I can't turn my furnace on? (Understand, my house is drafty enough - despite as much retrofitting insulation as I can manage - to fly a kite in on windy days).

I don't know whether to cry, or to beat my head against the wall, or to scream, or to consider selling this house and moving to another one, or what. This has been the most awful day in a long time.

It's times like this that I hate being single. That I wish I had been more of a fruit-cup gurl and giggled and batted my eyes at the boys, and managed to hook one into my life, so I'd have at least someone else here, someone to commiserate with me, and more importantly, someone to trade off the sit-by-the-phone-and-wait duties so I don't have to eat either yogurt or cereal for dinner because I have no other food in the house.

I tried calling my parents to get a little advice and/or comfort, but their phone is busy. Like me, my dad has dial-up internet (but he gets it FREE through his university). Doubtless he's watching election returns or re-running that stupid JibJab thing one last time. So I'm stuck, totally frustrated, with no one to talk to.

I'm really fearful that vulture was some kind of bad omen.