BrianandLibby.com

I swear, “I had a bad day” is playing everywhere I go and pretty much haunting me. Not as much anymore, but the end of last week contained “A series of unfortunate events” for me. Here’s the quick version:

• Thursday morning: After getting back into town from a quick trip for work, I was running a little behind (and a lot flustered). Additional frustration was introduced since the snow prevents Brian and I from using the extra side parking space in our driveway. So I had to move his car to get mine out, while running late. After getting his car out of the way, I backed out of the garage and heard a swift crack. Alas, it was my passenger side mirror which had caught on the garbage can. My thoughts went something like this. “Stupid garbage can. Wait, it’s garbage day, I need to take that out.” And to add insult to injury, as I looked over my shoulder to continue backing out I see the garbage truck driving away down the street. I think to myself “this isn’t going to be a good day.”
• Thursday afternoon: I follow up on two prescriptions that had been called into my mail-order pharmacy (I thought it odd that they weren’t in my mailbox yet and I was down to a zero-days’ supply in my reserve). When I give them my ID number, they say “your coverage has been terminated.” Confused (since I was at work at the time, and didn’t recall being terminated) I proceed to call HR and 5-7 incompetent customer service people. Long story short, my health insurance didn’t change but my prescription drug coverage did. Awesome. I get set up with the new place only to find out that it takes a minimum of two weeks plus processing time for new customers to use their mail order service. Daniel Powter chant resumes.
• Friday morning: My intelligence apparently diminished as a result of prior frustration, I decide that instead of shoveling the end of the driveway I will just “power through” it in Brian’s car. After all, it looked like some of the neighbors had and it was just 3 inches worth of plowing, right? Wrong. Very, very, wrong in fact. To make an extremely long, stressful and tumultuous story short, 3 hours later, roadside assistance has to jack the entire front end of the car up on both sides, tear out the now destroyed “Splash Shield” (apparently a piece of plastic can effectively suspend movement of your entire vehicle if properly combined with built up ice and stupidity), and prop up the car on wooden planks in order to back it out of the driveway. I will admit, I was relieved that the splash shield was the only thing damaged, and that I didn’t have to pay to have it towed. It was totally fine other than that so I drove it down to the dealer to get the splash shield replaced. I got a rental car, breathed a sigh of relief and drove home around 11:30.
• Friday afternoon: Exhale (and terminate) sigh of relief - dealer calls.
  “Yes, the splash shield is under $200 to replace and there is no other damage. Yes Mrs. Howe, it looks like you didn’t cause any other damage. Yes you are very lucky. Yes, we’ll have it done by 6. By the way, you need all new brakes and all new tires and your CV boots are torn and we don’t think your vehicle is safe to drive. Have a nice day.”