Throbbing Thursday

I was up shortly after six and got myself ready to attack the world. Then I stopped for a quick rest, I had time. I fell back asleep and woke up after seven. Whoops. I was meant to be at the grocery store at that time. I rushed to make my list of items and get out the door. I stopped for a McBreakfast first, my grade 10 intro to business teacher taught us to never shop on an empty stomach, it makes you buy more than you need. I got a bacon and egg mcmuffin and very much enjoyed it. It was nearly perfect in everyway. I once boasted that I’d love to eat their bacon and egg bagel sandwich everyday, but they made drastic changes to it, so now I’ve settled for this one.

I made my way through the very empty store. I decided to go for a bit of a walk and see if they’d opened anything else up yet. I was seeing some activity in the garden center as I ate my breakfast in the truck and wondered what they meant for the inside of the store. I wandered down to the far end of the store to find that everything was still roped off and the aisles plugged with skids. They moved everything from the middle of the wide aisle into the way to keep you from trying to buy other items. You can see this in the below photo. On the left is the housewares department and on the right is the toys department. Behind and to the left is seasonal. No patio sets or BBQ tools allowed I guess, unless you order online. I respect that it levels the playing field with other stores that don’t sell food but the whole thing is pretty damned inconvenient. I made my way around to the only part of the store you could buy from, the food department.

I managed to get a non-food item in my trip around the store. I got four bags of softener salt to replenish my reserves. I didn’t see any furnace filters available for sale. Also the garbage bags I couldn’t get last time were still not restocked. I ordered them on Amazon a week ago, they might arrive this weekend. At the end of my shopping I hustled home to unpack everything. My later start meant that I was cutting into my workday to finish this personal chore. I had a pretty decent haul in the end, and donated money to the hospital at checkout to bring it up to an even $215. Roughly $100 a week of food. I could go longer between, but that would really bite into my reserve stocks. As it was, I got this selection integrated into my food collection and started my workday.

I was snapping pictures at such a pace that I thought maybe I’d have enough fodder to do a day in photos like I did a couple of weeks ago. Once I plopped my bum down in my chair that was the end of that. I fired off a note to my colleague doing the export paperwork looking for confirmation that they received my instructions and could deliver on the request. I had customers expecting the seed to ship this week and I wanted to confirm that this was still able to happen to keep them in the loop and for my own peace of mind. No answer was forthcoming. I then used others to try and get info. Over the hours of the morning I learned that this person had a sore back and had been to the doctor and was going to have to get a MRI. I heard they were back at work so I hoped they were getting the paperwork down. It would probably take an hour or two, barring issues. Then maybe a few calls with carriers to get the instructions right. These are approximations based on previous dealings and the size and complexity of the load I wanted moving. I kept myself busy through the morning with work. At half twelve I realized I had a meeting coming up and better slam some food into me. I heated a can of Campbell’s Chunky Potato and Bacon soup and a Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Ham and Turkey panini to an edible temperature and then crammed them into my face as fast as I could. I figured I’d have to be done eating, cleaned up and back at my desk for one. Turns out the meeting was at half one. So all that rush for nothing. I chatted with my Quebec confidant until the meeting was about to start. I sent another alarmed email looking for information and followed up with some questions about well-being on Teams. I needed an answer, we needed to get that load on the road. No reply again. I was growing annoyed. I had agreed not to needlessly bring their boss into it, as that apparently slowed things down. My restraint was starting to slip for sure and I was feeling pretty frustrated. I didn’t get any information from that person all day. They didn’t even read my Teams messages, I can see when they’ve been read. By the end of the day I was outright pissed off. I was supposed to use the chicken that was cooked two week ago and had been slowly rotting in the fridge to make some soup but instead I just ate some chips and had a couple cookies and some pop. I know, not a good choice. But I was starting to unravel by the end of the day. I was realizing that my work was likely not going to get done and my seed wasn’t going to ship and my customers were going to be pissed off. There is defintely the chance that this person will come back to me and say they’ve got it done and the load will be delivered tomorrow but my experience with them tells me they are avoiding me because they aren’t going to do their job in this case and don’t want me to tell them otherwise. The evening was mostly spent in the basement playing NHL20. It wasn’t working well, in the end it spit the disc out and failed me too. Surrounded by frustrating outcomes no matter what I did I decided to retire to my bed early with my audiobook and while away the last hour of the day hoping to fall asleep faster. The day was stupid and left me with a sore tummy and a pissed off attitude. Naturally with junk in my guts I didn’t get to sleep right way, it was after eleven by the time I faded to black.