What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been

Today has been so weird that it's actually kind of comical.

1.) Had to reset my alarm clock last night. Thought I was setting for AM. Apparently I sat it for PM, as I startled awake to a morning-lit room thirty minutes late on my own. Dangit. Got ready for work in a tornadic fashion and made it here near enough "on-time" to call it good.

2.) This morning as I was getting ready to walk out the door I heard this dragging, thumping, scratching noise...from inside my place. I figure that the cat must be wrestling a toy somewhere. I finally spotted her, sitting completely still and staring at the ceiling. From a hole (drilled at some point, I assume, for wiring) in the ceiling, little bits of wood shavings and chunks were being dropped. The noise continued (**scraatch, scratch, scritch, thump, THUMP**). By the sound of it, there is something significantly larger than a mouse living amongst the rafters, above my ceiling, but below the floor of the level above. A squirrel possibly, a LARGE one, maybe the king of squirrels cracking boulders of walnuts on my ceiling. Fab. (*Thump, THUMP*)

3.) I chose a pair of white pants with pinstripes this morning. I hadn't worn them literally all winter, but for some reason they seemed like a good idea. Post squirrel invasion, but still running unnervingly late, I rushed out the door to realize that it was raining. I was wearing white pants, had no umbrella, and it was raining. No time to change. FAB.

4.) The best of all. As it has been a pretty hectic week, I rushed home at lunch to try to catch up a little bit on housekeeping that's been neglected. Vacuuming seemed a good, minimally dirty task to do, in my ill-chosen white pants. Started vacuuming, and soon discovered that the filter was clogged. Took said filter out on the back porch to be shaken off my second story balcony.

In the midst of shaking, thought to myself, "You'd better get a good grip on that filter so you don't drop it." Readjusted grip and continued shaking. Paper filter then fell two stories to the ground below, after detaching itself from the vacuum lid that I was still tightly gripping. Note: My apartment complex has completely fenced off the area behind our apartments with six foot privacy fencing to prevent animals/intruders/etc. from getting to our patios. This would prove problematic if there were ever a fire, as that is also where our fire escapes are... nonetheless ...back to the story.

If I left the paper filter on the ground until later it would surely have been ruined in the rain. I decided that the best course of action was to climb down the fire escape onto my lower neighbor's balcony, climb over the railing, grab the filter, and get the heck out of there before he opened his door with a shotgun in hand thinking someone was trying to break in. I did so, in my white pants, not realizing how grimy my neighbor's railing I had to scale would be. After making it back inside, and cleaning my pants up, I reattached the filter and began vacuuming again.

Immediately the vaccum started to make this horrible grinding noise and smelled hot. Apparently in the shaking/dropping fiasco a small plastic tab that holds the filter on, broke off, leaving my vacuum BROKEN AND USELESS. Now I wasted my entire lunch break, am dusty, and still have a dirty apartment. FAAAAAAAAB.

There is still quite a bit of day left. I am more than mildly concerned.

(Photo courtesy Darragh Sherwin)