Strange Days

Yesterday was a bizarre day for me.

First, on my way to work, I got a ticket for the first time in about 20 years. I was strangely calm and barley annoyed while the cop wrote me up for not stopping at the red light on the on ramp. It's probably the most weenie ticket one can receive but I was in that spaced out auto pilot mode that I couldn't even argue with the guy. I had no idea if I'd stopped or not. I was the only car on the on ramp and there is sometimes a red light and sometimes not so who knows what the heck I did.

When I pulled back into traffic I quickly realized something very bad had happened on the road ahead. Traffic was really awful. I just settled in and figured I'd make some work calls. I then found that my dumb new Bluetooth had a dead battery. How do you know when the battery is low anyway? It was a completely wasted use of trapped-in-the-car time. I later saw a Smartcar pull up alongside me and it literally me do a cartoon like double take. It might as well have been a shopping cart it was so wee. Of course, right next to it was a brand new Navigator. Why on earth would anybody still be buying those dumb things? With and average of 13 MPG you'd have to be nuts to drive one. Does anyone really have that kind of disposable income these days? Their license plate may as well say "Fool" on it. If they want to throw away money they may as well toss some into my sunroof while they're at it.

I finally got to work at almost 10:00 am. I sat down at my desk, knocked out a few emails and before I knew it found myself rushing off to an 11:00 meeting. When I returned I found a frantically written note taped to my chair asking "Where are you?! We're leaving with out you." from my lunch buddies. What time was it? Well, my internal clock was all out of whack, since I'd arrived so late, and it was apparently 12:15. What?! I managed to catch my friends as they were pulling away in a company carpool van. Meanwhile, my boss had been desperately trying to call me and I couldn't figure out how to turn off the Bluetooth mode on my phone so I could use it like a normal person when my friend slammed on the brakes and I went flying forward. I'd neglected to buckle up and I accused her of trying to kill me. She managed to startle me a few more times before and after lunch by making sudden stops. I was beginning to feel on edge.

After lunch, I got back to my desk and another friend was looking at some of my stuff. I had my scissors lying on my table when she picked them up and somehow managed to flip them out of her hands sending them crashing against the metal of my cubicle wall. Again, I was completely startled. What was going on?! Why was everyone spazzing out so much?

I finally decided to just leave early to do a store check and get away from these maniacs. Of course my Blackberry died while I was in the store and I didn't get the email that this morning's 9:00 am "One on One" meeting with my new EVP (big, big, big boss) had been postponed 'til next Friday. You mean I could have slept in more? Bummer.

I realize others have far greater problems but it was just one of those off days. Do you know what I mean? Everything just felt off.

When I finally got home I popped in Shandon's DVD of To Kill a Mockingbird. Almost immediately I felt better. Ahh, what a wonderful movie. It was the perfect anecdote to my strange day.