A post in which I am worried

I was up an hour before the alarm went off this morning. I hate that feeling. I tossed and turned, and tried to rest, but got up feeling all wuzzy and covered with sheet wrinkles. Ugh. But at least I wasn’t preoccupied with the meaning of life this morning. I sat on the porch, drank my coffee, and worried about this huge mass of work that’s headed my way.

This worry was exacerbated when the meeting to go over the Canadian bad debt function was re-scheduled today for the fourth time. Dayna is only here for two more days, and once she goes, that’s it. Her boss (and my new co-boss, lucky me) is terribly disorganized and never has a bit of time. My boss considers sending me spreadsheet “training”. So it’s not like I can count on any support for doing the new things that are heading my way. My boss seems to think that I should just be able to psychically intuit his wishes. Complicating matters, he will be in China for most of the month next month, so I won't be able to count on even his limited guidance. It'll just be me and Crazy (my new co-boss). Next month is gonna be hell.

After quietly freaking out in my head at my desk for a while today, I calmed myself down. I’ll get through it. It won’t be pleasant, but I’ll get through it. Not that I’m not thinking of retiring, buying an island somewhere (with what?) and raising macadamias or something.

I talked to Laura today. I called her because I didn’t hear back last night. She was having a trauma today though, and ultimately asked me to put off a visit to them. There were vague mentions of the weekend. The weather wasn’t pretty today anyway.

When I got off work though, I still didn’t want to go home. I was driving and thinking; just sure there was something I had been putting off that would be a suitable errand to eat some time tonight. Sure enough, I remembered that I really need some new work khakis. Since buying pants is somewhere near gum surgery in my ‘things I like to do’ list, I’ve been putting it off, but the ones I have I’ve been wearing for three years, and they’re looking decidedly raggedy.

I was resigned to paying retail. I’ve looked around a bit, but haven’t found anything I really liked. It doesn’t help that I really like the ones I have already. I’m at that age now where when something I like wears out I want another one exactly like it. It would have suited me fine to buy exactly the same pants again, but that wasn’t an option. I went in to Old Navy.

One of the reasons I hate pants shopping is that I seem to be at a magical size, which sounds much nicer than saying I have to buy clothes at the freak shop. Regular sized men’s pants just stop at a certain size. Then the sizes resume in the big and huge section. The problem is that there is a size gap between those two ranges, and I frequently fall in to that gap. Happily this was not the case today, and I found a pair of pants that fit me actually in the store. Usually at Old Navy, I have to go in, try things on, determine what will fit, and then order them on line. I was happy that they actually had something I was looking for that would fit me. But they had only one pair. They were on sale, which was great. The problem was that apparently people were stocking up on clothes to take to the Yukon or something. There were two registers open, both mounded up with incredibly huge orders. I wandered back and found a sales clerk (eventually, they weren’t exactly thick on the ground) and asked her for help with my pants. She confirmed that they had only one pair in the color I wanted to fit me, so I went back to stand in line. The same people were still checking out so it wasn’t like I lost any time or anything.

While I stood in line (befriending those around me and completing a short sociological study) I formulated a plan. I didn’t feel like eating what was at home. I would go to the other Old Navy store, buy the one pair of pants that they had to fit me, and then treat myself to a take-away from Brioso. That’s exactly what I did.

As much as I love their food, it is really hard for me to pay $10 for a plate of pasta (even if it is whole wheat and made there), which is what I did tonight. You can buy a lotta damn pasta for $10 at the grocery store. But I just decided I was treating myself, and that this wasn’t something I would make a habit.

When I got home I stuffed myself with pasta (which really was delicious) and then decided to put my new clothes in the hamper. I was merrily ripping tags off things when I noticed that one of the pairs of pants was inexplicably lilliputian. Turns out when I went back at the first store I had picked up the wrong pants. And I was so tickled to have that over. Oh well, I guess they can be exchanged.