Now this is a Monday.

I woke up in a decent mood today, glad that I only had to work today and tomorrow of this week, and then I’m out for Christmas-time. Ahhhhhh……family and fun. At lunch today I needed to drive home to meet a certain set of delivery-people, bringing a gift for Peabody. No big deal, right? Is anything in my life ever NOT a big deal, I ask you? Why hell no.

I left at 11:15 to head out to the ranch. About 5 minutes after leaving the office, I realize that since I’m in my Mom’s car, I don’t have the keys to get in. I call Peabody, and he happens to be coming through Gladewater, so I meet him at the gas station to get the keys.

Finally, I’m on my way home, happy and warm. I pull up to our gate and get out to unlock it, when the seatbelt sticks! Absolutely wouldn’t budge. I push and pull, tug, cuss, poke keys and other sharp objects in it, and nothing happens. I’m stuck in the car, at the gate, wondering when the grass will catch fire and I’ll be burned alive. (I only say that because yesterday when we got home there had been 3 mysterious grass fires on the side of the road near our house. Who’s to say it wouldn’t happen then?!?!?) I call my Mom to see if she’s run into this problem before. She laughs. Apparently it happened to my Dad a few days ago, but he was able to get it unstuck. I resolve to wait in the car until the delivery men show up and they can help me get out. Or maybe they have a pair of scissors handy. Who knows. After another 10 minutes I’ve had enough. I put the top down on the convertible in 36 degree weather, and wrangle the seat belt, stretching it to maximum capacity, and desperately try (and succeed!!) to contort my pregnant body until I’m able to break free. I’m out! (And very impressed with myself, I might add.)

I’m thinking to myself that I’ll have a few minutes to load the dishwasher before the delivery guys show up, and make it look like I live in a clean house. The front garage door is closed, as expected, so I drive around to the back. It’s always up and open, but earlier today Peabody had put it down except for 1’ space at the bottom so the dogs could keep warm. I decided to lay on my back and scoot under so I could open the front door. I managed to do that, and went back out to the car to drive back around to the front. Guess I got in too big a hurry and shut the door to Mom’s car, and after 30 seconds the car manually locks itself. Lovely. Now I’m out in the cold, with the keys for the car AND the house all locked in the car. What else?!?!?!?!?!? I call Mom and tell her I’m going to break a window. She freaks out thinking I’m going to break a car window, when I meant a window to my house so I could get inside where it was warm. Then she tells me even I call Lock Doc to open the car door, I won’t be able to start the car because of the alarm setting. It causes the engine to be on lockdown until you use a special-unlocky-thing. Figures. She decides to drive out to my house with Cookie and the unlocky-thing to help me out.

After waiting about 10 minutes, the delivery men show up and set the gift in the barn. I seriously thought about just leaving it out in the barn, or in one of the storage rooms, but I figured between the dogs, cats, random mice and other creatures the gift would have no chance of survival. Finally Mom made it out there, with the unlocky-thing, and my extra set out house keys. She did most of the work trying to get the gift inside (and it was work). I’d love to know the moron that designed our house and decided to put 4 steeply-inclined steps to the door. Idiot.

All business eventually comes to a close, and I’m able to head back to the office by 11:45. A good 45 minutes of hell. Just like a perfect Monday.