first day of vacation agenda

• make blueberry waffles
• back to bed
• put wheels with new tires on Jenn’s horse club trailer
• swap wheels with summer tires onto the Corolla
• hike with the dog on the mountain
• do some weed whacking
• cat nap
• practice drums for an hour
• dinner with Kathy in Maple Bay

Very nice.

i had a bad fucking afternoon

let me regale you with a story that is not boring or tedious at all.

here we go again.

i’ve been looking for some particular tires lately, some 185/60R15 to be precise. i finally found some on craigslist in victoria so i got in touch with the seller and made plans to go get them yesterday. so far, so good.

well, the drive down sucked. everyone was either speeding like a demon or driving so slow that i thought there was an accident ahead. plus i kept thinking about the $10 in gas the round trip to victoria costs. $10 is a lot just to get somewhere.

i finally arrived at the seller’s place and looked at the tires. they were in decent shape so i bought them, threw in my car, and started driving home. but after 5 or 10 minutes of driving, i realized i never double checked the tire size. i thought, “he listed them as 185/60R15, i’m just being paranoid.” but i pulled over and checked just to be sure, and what do you know. it turned out the seller HAD fucked up — these were 195/60R15, which are wider and taller than i wanted.

now of course i was mad at this jack off for putting the incorrect info in his ad, putting me through 2 hours of annoying driving, and wasting $10 in gas for some tires i didn’t even want, but i was more mad at myself for not checking the tire size before paying and driving off with them. why didn’t i check? because i’m a fucking stupid bastard.

already annoyed as all hell, i called the guy’s cell phone to ask if i could return the tires. no answer. i figured, “i just left his place, he was cleaning up his garage, surely he’s still there.” i got there and found he was gone. i knocked on the door, no answer. i called his wife’s #, she had no idea where he was and told me to call his cell phone. FFFFFUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK

so i drove home with a set of tires i don’t want, very angry.

i was pissed.

but every time i started to really fume about this series of increasingly irritating events, i thought, “i have no right to be so fucking miserable. millions of people in this world don’t know when they’ll eat next, if they’ll lose their limbs to a land mine, if they’ll ever see their friends and family again, if they’ll be forced at age 12 to marry an old man, if they’ll be stoned to death by an angry mob, etc.” in the big scheme of things, my tire problem is small potatoes. very small potatoes.

i have a lot to be grateful for. correct tires may not be one of them but i’m still doing pretty good. sometimes it’s hard to remember that. if i ever get completely absorbed in my first world problems, i hope someone picks me up and dumps me in the middle of a war-torn desert country so i can learn what real fucking problems are.

i guess i’ll stick with those tires.