It's been a shit day.

First I slept later than I meant to. I didn't oversleep so much that I was late for work; I just slept over enough that I was in a mad rush to shower and dress and drive to work. And I had a hearing at 10 am this morning, and needed to go by the office first to get my stuff together for it, so that made me feel all the more harried.

Then I got to my hearing. Everything seemed like it was going to go very smoothly. I was bringing an action on behalf of my client against someone for something that seemed kind of ordinary ... in the course of my particular job, that is. Like, it was an ordinary kind of case for me. I walked in, introduced myself to the lawyer on the other side, whom I'd talked to several times before but not yet met, and caught a glimpse of his client in profile from the corner of my eye. And then I sat down and pulled out my files, etc., and lined them up on the table. Said hello to my witnesses.

And then I looked back over at the client on the other side again. The party against whom I was bringing this action on behalf of my own client.

It was fucking one of the nice guys from College Mart. The store around the corner that is open 24/7 that I shop at all the fucking time. I mean; damn. Damn! I was pissed. Because right in that moment, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. And if not that, then I wanted to be able to stand up and say "nevermind; we withdraw our case." But of course that didn't happen either. Couldn't, or else I'd probably lose my job for doing that kind of shit.

For a very long minute he and I exchanged quick looks across the table from each other, each looking up real quick and then down again in turn w/o making actual eye contact. Then finally our eyes met. I smiled at him; he pointed his finger at me and said "College Mart. Right?" I said "I was just about to say the same thing." "Marlboro Lights," he said. "And cat food too," I replied. Everyone else laughed.

Just to give a little more info: this particular guy usually works the late night/early morning shift, and so I don't see him all that often. But I have seen him plenty enough, and made the nice quick little exchange of info often enough. He got to know me as a regular, so that we'd say hi whenever I did see him in there. And he actually did give me a free pack of Marlboro Lights one time. One time when I had gotten up super early for work b/c I had a big emergency hearing that I was stressed out about and trying to prepare for and couldn't sleep as a result of, I went to College Mart about 4:30 in the morning for a 20oz cup of coffee and a pack of cigs, and he only charged me for the coffee. I said something, and he said "don't worry about it." And I smiled and said "thanks." And meant it. So I'm sayin ... I felt like shit, seeing him there in this room. Knowing I was the bad guy to him in this particular situation. It sucked.

The hearing took about 4 hours. There was no ruling at the end of it, so I don't know yet which side won. I of course did what I had to do for my job ... but at the same time, I was not overly aggressive in any way; I conceded a few minor things to his lawyer, and I secretly internally in my head smiled whenever his lawyer scored a good point. Because really given how weak my case was compared to normal ones, and the fact that it was this guy, I wanted him to win. But not enough to not do my job. So it was quite the internal dilemma.

Well that was my morning. And that sucked. And it all put me in a bad mood.

And then I came home, and found another fucking headache waiting at my door.

See, today was trash pick-up day in my neighborhood. I have recently done quite a lot of spring cleaning, getting rid of old clothes that I haven't worn in years and that are too frayed/hole-y/etc. to even give away, getting rid basically of a lot of junk that I shouldn't be holding on to and that actually isn't even worth selling or giving away. And in the process, I had filled up a lot of Hefty Flex garbage bags with junk to be tossed. And those bags had been sitting just outside my back door, waiting for garbage pickup. A lot of them in my roll cart ... but a lot of them on the ground, too, b/c the roll car was full.

Well this morning, after I put my roll cart out by the curb, I saw my neighbor put his roll cart out. Actually, I should say his and his mother's, b/c he lives next door with his mother, a nice woman. But he's a little shit. A guy who is young but still too old to be living with his mother, in my opinion, kind of guy basically. And then the guy got in his car and left. Well since he'd left, and his mother had already left before that, and there was their garbage roll cart out by the curb waiting for collection, which occurs early in the morning in our part of the neighborhood, I decided that they definitely must have put out all the garbage they intended to put out today for collection, and so I went outside and looked in their roll cart to see whether it was full or not. It was only half full. So I put some of my bags in it; I managed to squeeze four more of my Heft Flex bags in their roll cart. And that left me with only three extra bags, which I put by the curb.

And a boring but important to this story side note is that I have found out from previous experience that our city's garbage collectors who empty our roll carts will pick up up to 4 additional garbage bags you leave by your curb that don't fit into your roll cart, but that if there are more than 4 extra bags then they leave all of those alone, and you're supposed to call the city department to ask them to send a special truck around your house to pick up all the extras. So you see, I knew that I would now have all my bags collected, because all but 3 were in roll carts now.

Well when my hearing was over today, around 2 pm, I swung by my house to grab a bite to eat for lunch. When I pulled up to the house, I noticed the neighbor son's shit car parked by the house, so I figured he was home. And then I noticed my roll carts at the curb, looking empty. And then I saw the garbage bags on the ground by the curb, still there .... seven of them.

Seven? Wtf?, I thought. I suspected, but I thought "surely not." But of course, when I looked, there were the three extras that I had put out that morning on the ground ... as well as the four that I had squeezed in to the neighbor's top half of their only half-filled roll cart.

Sonofabitch. That fucking little pipsqueak must have come home after I left but before the garbage pick up truck came by, saw that his rollcart was fuller than it had been (b/c the top wouldn't fully close after I put my bags in it), realized they were mine, and fucking took them out and put them on the ground. And then since that made 7 on the ground, the regular trash people of course did not collect them. Sonofabitch.

Now you may be wondering to yourself whether I should really be blaming this neighbor son guy. Who would do that, you might ask? Take garbage out and toss it aside. Maybe, you might be thinking, we should give him the benefit of the doubt, and say even though SOMEONE obviously took JUST MY bags out of that particular roll cart, maybe the neighbors came back home to put more garbage in their roll cart for collection, and couldn't fit it in b/c of my bags, and that's why they took my bags out. But, that's a stretch. Because seriously, our garbage gets picked up at around 9 to 10 am usually, and he'd already put their cart by the curb and left ... for what I thought was the day but was probably just a trip to the grocery store. Anyway, point is, I did not take up their cart with my shit beforehand or in any way such that I was keeping them from being able to use all their available garbage space; they clearly only had half a roll cart worth of garbage to empty. So why the fuck take my bags out? Why go to that trouble?

Well since you asked, I'll tell you why. It's because of the back gate. That's right ... the back gate, the one in the fence in our shared back yard. I know you're thinking I'm crazy and/or getting way off track of my story here, but just bear with me; I'll explain.

See, about a month ago I came home from a trip to the grocery store one afternoon, parked my car in our shared carport, and walked through our open gate to our fenced-in back yard, to go through my back door into my side of our duplex. And as I was walking through the gate, the neighbor son came out the back door of their half of the duplex and accosted me. He yelled at me ... for leaving the gate open.

Apparently after I had left for the store, he had let their two little (fucking annoying) lap dogs out their back door, to play and poop in our back yard. And he must not have been supervising them; he must have assumed the back gate was closed. Because one of them wandered outside our yard. And the neighbor boy was yelling at me, saying it was my fault that one of his dogs was missing, because I didn't close the gate. (The dogs were not outside when I left, I remind you.) "I have to come out here every damn day behind you and close this gate. And now one of my dogs is missing, all because of you." He was yelling this. It was not a pleasant moment for me. I sheepishly apologized (I do not like getting yelled at, and felt I was in the wrong at the moment because I HAD left the back gate open), and I quickly went inside my house.

And that's when I started getting irritated ... because I thought to myself, after I got inside my house, "they never asked me to keep that gate closed. I've lived here years longer than they have; I was already in the habit of leaving the gate open whenever I wanted. And when they moved in a year and a half ago, they didn't say anything to me about the gate, or the backyard, or their dogs ... they've had plenty of opportunity to ask me politely to keep the back gate closed if it was an issue with the dogs, but they never did. And now he's YELLING at me for not doing something that he never bothered to politely ask me to do in the first place? And isn't it HIS fucking responsibility anyway to make sure that the dogs don't run away, since they're his dogs ... I mean the dogs weren't outside when I left; so when he decided to let the dogs outside, why didn't he check first to make sure the gate was closed, if it was an issue, since they're his damn dogs and he'd never asked me to keep it closed? I mean, fuck!" So yeah, I got belatedly mad. And of course never said anything to him later about it, or his mother, though I wanted to, because I kept thinking to myself whenever I saw the neighbor boy (I started out this blog calling him neighbor son, and am now calling him neighbor boy, I just realized ... I think it's because I've gotten more annoyed at him yet again as I've been writing this, and neighbor boy just sounds slightly more demeaning) I think to myself looking at him, "you are a shithead for yelling at me over something that wasn't my fault ... and then never apologizing for it afterward. You little pipsqueak shithead." (Yeah, I'm not always very creative with my mental insults.)

(By the way, the annoying fuckass lapdog was quickly found by neighbor pipsqueak boy. And was soon safely back inside their side of the house. Barking like shit as always, traveling easily through the walls of the duplex, annoying the hell out of me. Not that I've ever complained to them about it, because I'm not that petty kind of neighbor that he apparently is.)

So I'm just sayin' ... I just KNOW that's totally why that neighbor pipsqueak boy took my bags out of his roll cart right before garbage collection time. Not because my bags were taking up space he needed; but just because he wanted to get back at me for leaving the damn back gate open that time. The little shit.

By the way, I vented about this earlier today to my Hometown Guy, and he said that neighbor boy no longer deserves for me to make the effort to always shut the gate behind me, after this little show of unjustified pettiness. In fact, he suggested that from now on, or at least until I get an apology, I make a concerted effort to make sure the gate stays open all the time. So if I'm at home, for instance, and I've left the gate open, and neighbor shitheadpipsqueak comes home and closes it, I should wait two minutes or so after he's gone inside, and then go out and open the gate. Even though I don't even want to walk through it to go anywhere. Just open it, and then go back inside. What do you all think? Would you do that, given this story I've just related?

One last shit moment about my day so far. See all that other stuff put me in a bad mood. But when I got home from work at the end of the day, I was ready to put my bad day behind me. Or try to anyway. And I decided to do some laundry, in particular to wash and change the sheets on my bed. So I was in my bedroom, and I pulled off the topsheet and threw it in the washing machine. And then I grabbed hold of the bottom fitted sheet, and pulled. And I guess the smart thing to do would've been to go around to each corner of the bed and untuck the fitted corners before I pulled it off. But I'm not always smart, so instead I just grabbed a handful and pulled. Hard. For a second nothing happened; there was no movement of the sheet. But then suddenly it pulled free. Like, fast. So fast and suddenly as I was pulling on it so mightily with my fists that one of my fists came right back at me and smacked me in my fucking nose. And I heard something in my nose snap, like in a sick way. Since I did not start bleeding from my nose, and since the pain, though sucking initially, soon went away, I'm assuming I didn't break anything. But I definitely bent some cartilage way the fuck out of its normal position. Because it was a sick sound, when my own fist punched my own nose. And frankly, that's just a fitting end to a sucky day.

But at least I do have a consolation, a great one: tonight, in just a couple hours actually, I am off to drive down to the Hometown Guy's home, to have a late-night date with him and spend the night ... and the weekend. Because I don't work tomorrow, and he doesn't have to work much tomorrow. So woohoo; I'm about to get three whole nights and days in a row's worth of fucking. And sweetness and romance and fantastic companionship too. And THAT is just AWESOME.

Have a great weekend, everyone!!!