Ever have one of those days where you're in such a bad mood, you have to step back and say "wow! I am in a monumentally shitty mood!" and do everything you can to remove yourself from people? As an individual who wrestles with occasionally intense socially anxiety disorder, I have them from time to time, and yesterday was one of those times.
It kind of started kicking in on Sunday when my back flared up again. My back problems aren't with the lower back, as every armchair physician suggests when they remind me I need to lose weight as if I was somehow unaware of the gut protruding past my beltline. My lower back's fine. The problem is with my 3rd and 4th thoracic vertebrae, and it stems from a car accident I was in at fifteen years old. While losing weight certainly wouldn't hurt, there is no causal connection between my weight and my back pain...but I digress. Anyway, when the back flares up, I have a nasty headache (think migraine times ten) that renders me basically unable to function. While I can manage with the pain if I absolutely must, I have found that I recover much quicker if I can rest and meditate to relax the muscles in my neck and upper back. This is not a process that can be rushed. So Sunday was a complete wash.
Yesterday was hot for the Texas Panhandle. We're talking Mojave desert hot. While the "official" temperature recording was "only" 105, we had a HOT wind blowing through that caused it to feel much hotter. Add that to the fact that we are still mired in a drought that has some forecasters predicting a return of the "Dust Bowl", and it was a day that wasn't looking to get any better. Then, I arrive at the paper office, and, true to form, they're running late on the papers (EVERY first and third Monday of the month, when I have both Lion's Club meetings and the volunteer fire department to attend, they have been late...for the past four MONTHS!), and my "pissed off" level was rising even higher. But it was the sign below the one announcing the papers would be late that really threw me over the edge. Our monthly financial statements, which tell how much money we're supposed to get paid for our routes for the months, and are due on the first, but had been promised this month (the third straight month they have been late) on the fifth are now supposed to be in on the seventh. Because of a screw up with their accounting system (don't ask) my last two months' pay has been amazingly short, and, with rising gas prices and car repairs, this has been stressful enough. And our planned extra income from telephone directory deliveries was nixed because the man in charge of the delivery decided to farm the work out to his buddies and take the money for himself instead of hiring on those of us who were waiting to deliver the phone directories, meaning our next month with projected "bonus" money will be December. Since I don't know how much money I will have for the month, I need to start doing what I can NOW to raise extra money for the month, and that's not an easy task, since my plate's been pretty full as of late. And so, by the time I finally got my papers, I was hot, bordering on steaming. All I wanted to do was get my papers done and get home.
Man, I hope this is all worth it in the long run.