Today is, without a doubt, the worst day I have had this year. It all began last night.

Yesterday, it rained all day. I’m not talking about just misty, or a light drizzle, but RAIN. So after I got home from a client meeting, around 10:00 PM, I decided to wait until this morning to take out the trash. I left my car out to make it easier for me. I can’t get the garbage cans out of the garage if my car’s in there. I’m usually ready to leave for work by about 8:00 AM, and the garbage truck doesn’t usually roll through my neighborhood until 8:15-8:30. I know it’s cutting it close, but it’s usually not a problem.

January 18th, 2006 8:00 AM
I awaken to the sound of the garbage truck on my street. Great. I guess my trash will sit in my garage for another week. Why can’t they be a little consistent?

8:03 AM
I rush to the window to make sure I didn’t hear a noisy school bus or something, and maybe I still have time to get the trash out….Nope. Neighbor’s trash is empty. Oh yeah, and the ground is covered in snow. It was 50 yesterday!!! Now we have snow. It’s certainly a good thing I left my car outside last night. Grrr…

8:05 AM
Shower time. Where is all the hot water? Ow! I just dropped a full shampoo bottle on my foot! I have TWO hot water tanks…why is this water AT BEST 75 degrees?

8:10 AM
Work is starting to seep into my head. Today, I’ve got to finish building a reporting application, a proposal for Magic Mountain Fun Centers, some debugging for a college’s website, and finally, complete an RFP (request for proposal) for an ultra-demanding client. Should be just a great day. 😦

8:20 AM
OK. Wife and daughter are up, and we’ve all made it downstairs to the kitchen. I’m grabbing my coat, and ready to head outside to start scraping my car. My daughter yells “Hug!” as I make my way to the door. She runs over and gives me a hug and kiss goodbye. The morning’s events have just been erased in my mind. She’s absolutely the greatest. I walk over to Sara to kiss her, and before I can get there, the power in the whole house goes out. Welcome back, morning’s events!

8:22 AM
Oh yeah, garage doors use power. Looks like I’m dragging this one open and closed this morning.

8:25 AM
Despite the fact that my refrigerator is warming, my house is cooling, and I am leaving my wife and daughter to potentially suffer in the cold, I’ve still gotta get to work. Scraping my car off should certainly take my mind off of everything else…

8:30 AM
Looks like the whole neighborhood is out of power. Wow. Even the grocery stores and gas stations around the corner are out of power. Oh my god, look at the traffic. Every light between my home and my office is out. Well, it’s only 8 miles, how bad can it be?

9:05 AM
I finally arrived at work. 8 miles in 35 minutes. That’s gotta be a record of some sort. At least I don’t have a full day of work ahead of me.

9:30 AM
Ok, the work that I expected to take me 30 minutes is definitely going to take more like 2 hours. No biggie. I’ll manage.

1:30 PM
Yeah, 2 hours wasn’t even close. Now I’m starving, the client’s waiting for me to deliver, and none of my other work has even begun.

2:00 PM
Looks like the code I wrote might have had some issues once I delivered it to the client. “It worked fine on my computer…” Heading back to the office, via Chick-Fil-A, to make some modifications before heading back to the client.

2:15 PM
Chick-Fil-A forgot my friggin fries, and a straw for my drink. Are you F’n kidding me today?

2:30 PM
OK, code’s fixed. Belly’s kinda full. But man am I angry they forgot my fries. It’s not that I need them, it’s that $6 for 12 nuggets of chicken seems like a bit of a ripoff. I’m gonna call them.

2:42 PM
Adam, the manager, was very understanding. There will be a hot, fresh new combo meal waiting for me at the drive-thru, on my way back to the client. Maybe this day is taking a turn for the better.

3:40 PM
All the code worked this time, with some on-site finagling. So I got a free combo meal, and my stuff worked in a production environment. Woo Hoo!

The day is nearly over. What else can possibly go wrong?