Shi-tastic Day!

today was a bundle of crap from minute one. Though I didn't have to wake up until 9am, I was woken by construction and banging from the back alley way behind the house. So I rolled around for almost two hours drifting in and out of sleep. Then I woke up, checked my e-mail, showered, and (now this was unusual) made some breakfast. Normally, I don't think to really eat breakfast, so I ended up leaving about 5-7 minutes later than I usually do.

This would prove to be my downfall.

I was drowsy and inattentive while driving to work. I've drive Route 136 hundreds of times, and I am very aware of changes in the road surfaces, speeds, curves and corners. When I got into Durham, I reduced speed to 40 mph, (its a 35mph zone) and cruised through. After passing the junction of Route 9 West and the softball field, I began to speed up to 55mph, knowing that around the next corner the speed limit became 50 mph again.

I saw the blue and white flashing lights and thought "That'd better not for me." But I knew they were--I'd been having a premonition, a prompting, if you will that I was going to get pulled over today. Ever since I first got onto 136 I kept thinking that I was going to get pulled over. And here it was, happening.

The officer TELLS ME that when he first spotted me that I was going 40, (as I told you all) and that I sped up to 54 mph as I rounded the corner! Just so you know, by the time he had pulled me over, I was almost 3/4 of a mile INTO the 50mph zone. This shows you how close I was to the 50mph zone when I was spotted. I didn't admit to anything, but I was given a ticket for doing 54 in a 35mph zone. A 185 dollar infraction. PLUS my insurance card said my insurance had expired (it hadn't, I just hadn't been given a new card from Sarah yet). But that was another 175 dollar infraction. Fortunately, the insurance one will be a cinch to contest. I am still debating whether or not I will contest the speeding ticket. I am going to go back and take photos because I think I can get the fine reduced if not erase. I mean I was literally 1000 feet from the 50 mph zone. I mean, I'll take a 50 dollar ticket for doing 54 in a 50, that's fair. I WAS speeding 4 over. But I NEVER go 19 over, that's not me.

So I went to work, mood soured by my perfect record being spoiled, and my soon to be through the roof insurance rates. I am sure that it won't matter that I have had a FLAWLESS driving record for 3 years. They will just see that I am a Male under 25 and assume that I am a reckless and irresponsible adult. (Sexual profiling is still an okay type of descrimination, as long as it's towards men, not women.)

Upon getting to work (15 minutes late, when the boss has recently been cracking down on tardiness) I found that we were SWAMPED by french canadians. It was busier than a weekend, even though it was a TUESDAY. So instead of being able to chill and hang clothes and listen to music, I had to work on the floor, making pitiful attempts to help customers and fruitlessly cleaning the floor (zipping, tucking, hanging) just to see it destroyed the moment I walked away. I went to lunch a half and hour late because I could get a moments free time, and I decided that I needed junk food because I was in such a bad mood. I grabbed my ticket out of my car so I could read it over at lunch. I walked to McDonalds because Freeport was so packed with people that if I had driven I would have never found a space within a mile of my work.

I called Sarah and vented my problems as I ate a big mac and fries. I totally forgot to read the ticket.

Which is why at about an hour after lunch I realized that my ticket was missing. After work I retraced my steps, asked if it had been turned in at McDonalds, but to no avail. I LOST MY F-ING TICKET WITHIN 5 HOURS. NOW I have to figure out how to get another copy, only to contest it.

THEN my boss asked me to stay an extra hour because we'd been so understaffed.

Awesome. SO I didn't even get home until 8pm, even though I was supposed to work 10-6pm.