Are we sure the world hasn’t tilted on its axis?

Turns out that the reason there was no bad luck on Friday the 13th was because I got it all today. Endless frustrations – on what was, weather wise at least, a glorious day. Mrs. Ottawacker was out for work – having to visit an urban forest somewhere (which is a really cool initiative, actually), so I thought I’d get some stuff done. My chances of doing this were increased dramatically when Ottawacker Jr. told me his intentions of going on a bus ride.
 
The day from hell started with irritations and got worse. A simple procedure, calling in to Shoppers Drug Mart via their automated system to renew my various medications, which takes three minutes. Except this time, I kept on getting kicked out of the system before I could review and confirm. This happened three times: each time I called and tried again, I got a message telling me that my account was open and that I needed to wait. So for all three medications, I had no idea whether or not I had actually renewed them. So I tried to get hold of a person: and spent 15 minutes on hold. When the phone was finally answered, I was in the process of buttering a piece of toast. This caused me to drop the phone and lose the connection. I called back. I was on hold again. I gave it up as a bad job and figured I would try again later. I had other, more important fish to fry.
 
Like Liverpool’s continuing brilliance in the league – against Nottingham Forest. Except, it wasn’t continuing brilliance, it was pure shiteness. We managed to lose 1-0 to a team that had one shot during the game. Not sure what the issue was – other than post-International-break jetlag. But it was a painful 90 minutes.
 
Best thing to do in situations like this is keep busy. I had ordered a new scanner from Amazon, so thought I would install it on my new-ish laptop. Now that my old devices can no longer communicate with my new devices, I find myself in a bit of a pickle. I can’t print, scan, access my iTunes account or watch various channels… I have no idea (other than price) why I bought it from Amazon – and it is certainly not a mistake I will make again. Out came everything – except for half of the power bar. This, it transpires, had not been included. Faced with the choice of either screaming, throwing the scanner out of the window, or getting in touch with an Amazon agent, I chose the latter… I did the first as well – and was really, really tempted to do the latter. Especially as my Indian interlocutor from Amazon, a guy called Mukesh, who was very nice and very professional, was not in a position to send someone round to repair it immediately – and instead offered me the opportunity to purchase a separate power bar, which would be, he assured me, entirely compatible with the scanner I had. I had just managed to negotiate a refund for the price of this power bar when I looked up and saw the power bar on top of the printer. I had, as I was unpacking the layers of Styrofoam, removed it and placed it in a “safe place”. I thought about ‘fessing up to Mukesh, but realised I’d better try to install the scanner first.
 
And good job I did. Because the scanner – which requires a DVD port to install the programme, a feature which my new ASUS laptop singularly does not have (thankfully I have an external one) – completely failed to work. The power bar worked – the CDROM worked – the lights were on – but the scanner was completely incompatible. Back on the message system to Mukesh – who had by now transitioned into Patricia – and we sorted the problem out: I agreed not to throw the scanner through the window, she agreed to give me a complete refund, minus the power bar fee, and we would never darken each other’s doorsteps again.
 
The day, meanwhile, was almost two-thirds done. Mrs. Ottawacker came home, as did Ottawacker Jr. I cleared my desk and was in the process of sorting stuff out on the bed when the cat came and lay in the middle of the papers I was sorting. I picked her up (gently) and moved her. She miaowed and came back. This I repeated. In the end, I realised that I was not going to get my papers sorted, that the day was a complete write off, and the only thing to solve the problem was to go and sit in the back garden with a bottle of wine and enjoy the last of the sun. The wine was corked. As I moved to get another bottle, I went inside and came back to find that a squirrel had not only raided the bowl of peanuts I had, it had started burying them in the lemon tree I had recently replanted.
 
The evening, however, was very pleasant. Ottawacker Jr. chose a movie (Miss Congeniality again), Mrs. Ottawacker took pity on me and cooked dinner, and I made ice cream waffles for dessert.