Everyone has a “bad Monday” story, I’m sure.  Mine is from April 4, 2016.

And it started off with a mammogram. Who makes a mammo appointment for a Monday?!  (All kidding aside, make sure you schedule and keep your yearly mammo appointment ladies!)

I arrive on time for my appointment, and the tech takes and reviews my history.  Three people (possibly four) on my dad’s side of the family had prostate cancer, which according to new testing available, puts me at a possible higher risk for cancer.  I almost cried right then and there.

When I finally leave the Women’s Health Center, I feel totally deflated- literally and figuratively.  I walk out into a blizzard.  It’s April 4th.  This is not a “quick- flurry, melt-in-an-hour” kind of storm.  This is a “settle-in, mid-winter” type of storm, with predictions of 3-5 inches. It’s piling up as fast as my wipers can clear it.

I stop at Dunkin’ for a latte.  I think I deserve a treat.

Oh, and I notice my gas light has been on for… I don’t know how long.  Hope I make it to the station.

Thankfully I do.  Pumping gas in a blizzard in April is fun.

By the time I get back to my town, the roads are slick.  All I want to do is put deodorant on and change my sweater.  Because you’re not supposed to wear deodorant when you get a mammo.  And because I noticed when I was changing that I’d spilled… something orange all over the front of my sweater.  Oh well.  Good thing I had on my winter parka so no one noticed.

I can barely make it up my steep driveway, the car is fish-tailing all over the place.  If you’ve never seen my driveway, it could be best characterized and the best damn sledding hill in the neighborhood, if it didn’t run into the street.

I have to park at the top of the driveway because our old fridge  has taken up residence in my garage bay– since it’s so big that Salvation Army wouldn’t take  it.

But the 1-800-GOT-JUNK guys will.  And they are coming in a couple of hours to take that fridge and various other old electronics in the garage.

But they call almost as soon as I walk in the door- the junk guys do.  They are at the dump now and can they come early?

Like how early? I ask.  Like in forty minutes.

Gah!

I look at the driveway, trying to wish it to melt.  I was counting on the weather to turn to rain and melt all the snow.  Not so much. It’s still coming down like there’s no end in sight.

I’m really glad I had something to eat at Dunkin’ because it’s lunch time, but now I have to play “beat the clock” and shovel the driveway.  Or for sure, no dumpster truck is going to make it up here.

So I shovel.  And shovel.  And swear. And sweat. And shovel. And swear some more.  On my best day, it takes me longer than 40 minutes to effectively shovel this driveway.

By this time it’s pointless to put on deodorant because I will surely need another shower.  I can only hope my stench is contained under my filthy sweater.

When I reach the bottom of the driveway, I look back up and it’s snowing so hard, the driveway is completely white again. I’m slipping as I walk back up.  All I have now is the hope that I can put enough ice-melt on it so the truck can make it up, because I’ve run out of time.

They send a scout ahead of the truck, and he drives up just as I finish with the ice melt.  In a Mini Cooper.

I say hi and we shake hands.  He eyes my driveway warily.  As if he could tell me something I don’t already know.    “I don’t know if the truck can make it up,” he says.

“Well, he better find a way, because I’m telling you, you don’t want to carry this monster fridge down the driveway in the snow,”  I smile.  Sort of.

It’s too late for me to move my car to the street because the truck is attempting its ascent. So I have to park in my husband’s side of the garage.  It’s a bit squishy and while trying to compensate, I hit one side of the doorway, white paint scraping on my door handle on the passenger side.  I turn the wheel, but on the other side, I hit this metal edging on the door frame,  and bump loose the bottom board of the steps that lead into the house.  I have to stomp the board back down but it creaks and the nails are pulled out and are not going back in.  I have to kick the metal edging back with my boot because the garage door won’t close.

Fabulous.

By this time the junk guys have taken everything and are gone.  I don’t know if they saw or heard me play bumper car on the other side of the garage.  Whatever.

I just want to eat lunch and relax in the hot tub.

I go out to the back yard and can’t lift the hot tub cover because there’s too much snow on it.

I go back through the 3 inches of snow in my flip flops to get a shovel.

By the time I finish scraping off the cover, my hands and feet are burning with cold.

I step into the glorious hot tub water and my whole body is burning with temperature shock.  I relax for about a hot minute when I realize the chlorine dispenser is empty.

I step out, get the container of chlorine tablets, hop back in, and fill it up.  I shake the dispenser to settle the stack of tablets,  and one pops out into the water.  The jets are on so I can’t see where it landed, but I’m not too concerned because it will eventually dissolve.

I sit back to relax, finally.

My feet and hands are still tingling.  But then I feel a burning sensation on my left butt cheek.  I reach down and realize I’m sitting. On. The. Chlorine. Tablet. And it’s burning through my skin.

I read the warnings on the container: “Avoid direct contact with skin” and  “Flush with fresh water for 20 minutes.”  Hot tub time is cut short.

Into the shower I go. I have to treat the quarter sized burn with aloe and put gauze pads over it.  I have to put on sweat pants because that’s the only thing I can wear that doesn’t cause uncomfortable levels of pain.

It hurts to sit, which is a problem because I spend the majority of my afternoon carpooling.

I just want the day to be over and it’s not even 2 pm yet.

This Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day, is now simply referred to (by me) as The Monday that Bit Me in the Butt.   And filed under “days that ended with a large glass of wine.”