Us and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day...

If any of you have read Judith Viorst's book for children, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day you will know whereof I speak. Now while our day may not have been quite as bad as Alexander's (we didn't have lima beans for dinner), the morning was close to qualifying. This was last Monday...5 days before the Big Event.

It actually started on Sunday when it was announced from the pulpit that folks were welcome to come help decorate the church for Christmas on...ta da!!! SATURDAY, from 12 -4 pm. Uh - duh - our wedding is at 4:30. This was enough to send the MOB into major panic mode.

Got that straightened out -- it's on FRIDAY from 12 - 4. Today, actually.

Then Monday.

No patients to see at the hospital, so I figured it was a good time to upgrade the security system on the software I have that processes credit cards. I'd been completely unable to do it on my own, and tech support had been so busy that I wasn't able to get through the first few weeks it was out. I got Hugo. He was helpful, but when we got to the part that would take 15 minutes, we hung up with instructions to call back after the salient part had downloaded, and anyone could take me the rest of the way.

I got Del the second time around, and the system promptly refused to go any further. Del helped me erase the entire setup and start again. When we got to the part where it takes 15 minutes to download, we hung up, and after it downloaded, I called back and got Donna. The system promptly refused to go any further.

Round 3. This time she said that what I had done with Del and Hugo was completely wrong, and we were going to start again. This time she hung up when I was downloading something that was to take 20 minutes. She'd call back at 10:05. It took 3 minutes to download, so I twiddled my thumbs until she finally called back at 10:30. We were humming along for about another 10 minutes when -- whammo! The electricity went out.

Torrey had a dress fitting at 1:00. It is now 11:30ish, and we realized we can't get the garage door open. We'd recently put in a new garage door, and while they are all supposed to have an override so that it can be opened in case of power failure, the new door didn't fit over the old fixture.

I called Bob who said he'd come home from work. Not sure what good that was going to do us since he had a meeting at 1:30 in a northern suburb, but it is always nice to have a man around to make tut tutting noises, even if he can't fix the problem.

10 minutes later the electricity came back on, and I called Bob to tell him not to come home after all while Torrey raced outside to get the garage door up before anything else nasty occurred.

I called tech support again, figuring I had time to finish up the project before we had to leave. I got Laticia. She was very nice -- we got through all the erasures and downloads and had just gotten to the same point that I got with Del, Hugo, and Donna and the software said it couldn't finish the download due to some strange error. Again. At this point we had to go, so I told Laticia goodbye and I'd try again -- hoping against hope I didn't have to process any credit cards.

Got into the car, and the key wouldn't fit into the ignition. The steering wheel froze. Then the key stuck. We pushed and pulled and prodded for several minutes -- I'm just a little stressed by now -- when Torrey finally said, "Do you have the right key?"

Uh, duh, well, now that I look, I'm trying to start the Lincoln with her Saturn key.....

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

I'm not stressed. No, not a bit of it.

Got home and the computer froze. It wouldn't even turn off.

WHY didn't one of my children learn about computer technology?

No -- not stressed.

I was very glad when Monday ended.....and I made the decision to never mind about any software until AFTER The Wedding.

Tuesday was much improved.

Whew.