Rocking Rats

 Rats become irascible when thwarted. I remember having a neighbor whose husband loved rats. Go figure. Rats. And before the pandemic, there were more than 150 million rats in the UK. Most of them were-and are-in London. I can just imagine how many there are now. Many of them even have four legs.

My neighbor's husband used to love telling stories about rats (he must have been so much fun to live with. Not great at dinner parties, however). 

It seems that when rats are cornered, they start to rock from side to side. They are looking for a way to escape. Clever rats? But if there doesn't appear to be any escape, they stop rocking and attack. Teeth first. I know a lot of people like that, actually. You probably do, too. I was married to one of the two legged ones. I'm the one who started rocking. Divorce was obviously preferable to murder-but only just...

Anyone ever have to suffer through a day from Hell? Where everything that could possibly go wrong-goes wrong? And in a big way? That was yesterday. It was the day from Hell in a week that was from Hell. I think I know how rats irascible rats feel when thwarted. It took a long time for me to calm down. Stress, anyone? My blood pressure went so high, it was probably normal. The fact that I didn't work myself up into a heart attack was a miracle (especially since my heart is top of my list of favorite organs).

For starters, I dropped my nebulizer on Monday night. I hit it with my elbow and it went flying off the table, hit the floor, and was I ever cursing! Goodbye, nebulizer. First time ever that I broke a nebulizer, and I've been using it since the gentamicin disaster, so I guess that's a pretty good run. Trying to get a replacement, however, was another thing.

I fought all week to get UPS to deliver the replacement. Now, what happens when you hire the cheapest company on the tender? You get UPS, people who make you wait nine hours for a delivery, don't show up, then lie about trying to deliver. It's bad enough that they are a bunch of useless liars-it's worse when they try to lie to your face. And that doesn't work for me at all. That's when I become irascible. Don't lie -I won't accept it. Huh. We get lied to all the time. It's called the government.

I finally got the delivery - but to a local access point-the people were incredibly nasty, and I had regrets afterwards about being terribly polite. What happens when you get the cheapest possible contract with UPS? They don't provide tracking numbers, only names and addresses. And some of these UPS delivery points hire people who are illiterate. Try to argue with someone who can't read or write. Frustrating, or what?

I finally sorted the whole thing out, left the shop, started to walk back-and some total asshole (I know: money for the swear box, which is overflowing) driving a large van didn't look while he was turning and very nearly drove into me. So, apart from the stress and aggravation of sorting out the nebulizer, and having to fight with idiots all week, I nearly got hit by a moron in a van who clearly didn't have a drivers license.

Some days you just can't win. And when people tell you to let it go, don't let things aggravate you-you want to smack them. Hey. Whack. Let this bloody go!

I had an email from a friend I've known for a long time. She bought two dogs-puppies-and she was telling me that they're losing their baby teeth. So she's keeping the teeth and - are you ready for this?-she's putting them in her jewelry box. Then she said that she didn't even do that with her three sons (who don't speak with her. No surprises there, either). She asked if that is weird. Uhhh...yeah, that is very weird. Imagine if someone went into her jewelry box and found a lot of teeth...ewwwww!

I'm going to sign off and hope that I will have a good weekend and a better week next week. I went to the gym and murdered the treadmill, so now I'm going to Starbucks. And let's see if I can get through an entire weekend-and maybe even an entire week-without fighting (verbally, of course) with anyone. I'm reaching the point where I'm going to need a suit or armor...