You wouldn’t think that a request at the butt-crack of dawn (Ok, more like 8:30) to drive three hours and rush a forgotten passport to the airport would be greedily welcomed like a Starbuck’s Frappuccino to Britney Spear’s gullet, but it was.

Oh, how it was.

Yesterday, my husband followed through on shoving our anniversary plans into the garbage in favor of sushi (Which he doesn’t really like) and bowling (Ditto) with his department at work. The same department that he sees every single day. The same department that he lunches with every week on his own dime and every month on theirs. The same department that, while full of nice people, does NOT contain my “Magical Boobies” or a vagina that he is allowed relations with.

I hope that the time he spent was full of rainbows and bursts of diamond sparkles because there is not going to be a whole lot of warmth in our snug little cottage any time soon.

He came home and said, “Hey! Let’s grab some dinner!” I replied, “Hey! No thanks!”.

Maybe that is my bad, but at this point? Don’t care. I wasn’t trying to punish, I did not want to spend my night with someone who so easily tossed me aside. I’d rather be by myself with my computer and some Christmas music than eat a dinner that is only meant to placate me and prove he wasn’t totally abandoning the day. It all left a bad taste in my mouth, so I declined.

He did bring me a Diet Coke and a mouse for my laptop, which was nice.

Anyhoo, I know you want me to move off of this topic.

Besides, I’m sure that you are all dying to know how I spent the day instead because you think I am awesome and you hang on all of my awesome words. Really, I don’t even know where to begin because being me is a WHOLE LOT OF AWESOMENESS to try and segment into tiny, daily posts. I don’t know how I do it some days. (It’s probably because I’m, ya know, awesome.)

Sigh.

I spent the morning running to the rescue of my dear friend, Chelle. She is taking her family to Whistler, B.C. for a ski vacation over the Christmas holiday. In the shuffle, her son’s passport was left behind. So, glad of a diversion, I hopped in my Jetta and drove the hour and a half down to Salt Lake City.

It was lovely to see her before she flew out.

While I was in the city, I took some time to shop and browsed Barnes & Noble (Which I adore) and ate a divine lunch of Sushi (Ditto) with my beloved sister, Linny (Who I adore the MOST.)

All was well until the drive back.

There was standstill traffic on the freeway due to an accident and the eleventyhundred Diet Cokes that I consumed during lunch caught up with me in a big, ‘ole ugly way. The next 20 minutes of my life were full of pain and agony and trying to distract myself from thinking constantly about my overwhelming need to pee.

It didn’t help that I kept singing the following in my head: (To the tune of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, if you please.)

“I need to pee…I need to pee…I need to pee, I need to pee, I need to pee..I need to pee, I need to pee I need to pee..I need to pee (I need to pee), I need to pee (I need to pee), I need to, NEED. TO. PEE!”

After an eternity, I was able to get off of the freeway and stagger into the bathroom in the very nick of time. I really shouldn’t have made so much fun of my best friend in high school for doing “Pee-Pee Push ups” and lecturing me to do the same thing. What can I say? She wanted eleventyhundred children and didn’t want to be peeing her pants regularly by age thirty as a result. Now, THAT is thinking ahead.

Diet Coke will make you pee like a racehorse.

Speaking of Diet Coke, I have cut back on my habit of imbibing in the Dark Waters. This is not something that I should really get a pat on the back for because it wasn’t done on purpose. It happened because I went APE SHIT POSTAL in the middle of my favorite watering hole and now as a consequence, I will never step foot inside again.

Looking back on it, I never should have gone to the gas station that day.

It was the day before Thanksgiving and things were crazy around my house. Little did I know that it was also day one of what was to become “The Great, Hideous Illness of ’07″ and that I would soon have three weeks of pain, illness and misery. I woke up with pain in my lungs and a cough. (“I think I’ve got the black lung, Pa!” ) and so I stayed in my pajama bottoms and t-shirt.

All day long, I rested in bed, chugging cough syrup and munching on vitamin C tablets, hoping for a miracle and that I would be well by Thanksgiving dinner.

Not.

So there I lay, like a mucous-infested bump on a log. Hacking, typing, blogging, sniffing. After awhile, I really wanted a Diet Coke. It was the only thing that sounded good. I was in a foul mood. I had haphazard pigtails from the day before, I was in my pj’s with no bra and mismatched slippers. I figured that since I wasn’t going INTO a store, just through the drive-through, I would be ok.

The only vehicle that was there for me to drive was “The Butt”. It is a humdinger of an station wagon that debuted the same year as E.T. It sort of rounded out my total white-trash look.

I drove to my favorite gas station. They have a drive up window. They charge you an extra dime for each item when you use it. While it is worth it, it adds up to quite a bit when you couple my fierce streak of lazy with as much D.C as I drink.

I drove to the drive through and waited. And waited. And waited.

Judy was working.

I.freaking.loathe.this.girl.

Judy had been working there for about three months. During that time my dislike grew, and grew, and GREW. She was constantly on her cell phone, ignoring you standing right in front of her as she chattered on and on and on and gave you looks of incredulous annoyance if you acted like you should actually receive service. Orders were wrong, change was always incorrect, and she had a gross habit of sitting on the counters and making the weirdest exclamations like “I have the HUGEST zit on my back right now!! Someone needs to pop it!”

She was one of the worst cashiers I have ever encountered and she was also the only employee at that store that I have ever disliked. She was particularly bad at the drive through window. Still, I held my tongue because there were other people that worked there and they were all great.

It WAS busy that day. There were 5 people at the counter and I was fine waiting for that. They left and she just kept helping people in line that arrived there after me.

She helped FIFTEEN PEOPLE that came in after I did.

Normally, I would have gone in or driven off, but this girl had already pissed me off so many times over the months I wanted to see how freaking long it was going to take her to even acknowledge that I and the three cars in line behind me even existed.

I was there for thirty.two.minutes.

Now, you need to know that I am a nice person. I do not like yelling, I do not like anger. I have never, EVER lost my temper in public. EVER. I can’t even send food back that sucks in restaurants because there is nothing that I hate more than public confrontations.

The mere thought of them makes me nauseated and anxious to the point that my nipples get hard with fear.

Yes. My nipples get hard with fear sometimes. I’m not really sure why that is, exactly. It’s actually odd that I even notice because…duh…I’m scared at the time. Something else to focus on I suppose. Actually, I should be glad that my nipples can get hard at all. If they can’t it is likely that you have inverted nipples and everyone should know and be cautious about them because they can be a sign of inflammatory breast cancer, which is horribly deadly and…

What? What’s that, you say?

Shut the hell up about “Nipples, this!” and “Inflammatory breast cancer, that!” and get ON with it already?

FINE, then! See if I ever talk to you about my nipples again, you ingrate!!

Where was I?

Oh…Fear of public confrontation.

My aforementioned fear of public confrontation ceased to exist for me by the time Judy finally came to the window. I didn’t even make eye contact because I was afraid that they would send out explosive death rays that would blow up the earth. Instead, I put my money firmly in her hand and snipped out in cold, even tones:

“I.would.like.a.Diet.Coke.PLEASE.”

I know. I wasn’t nice. She knew I was pissed. That is how I wanted it. It would have been fine if she would have just, you know, GIVEN ME THE DAMN SODA, ALREADY.

Nope.

In a voice that was seething with petulance, she said, “You don’t have to SCREAM at me, MA’AM”

Eight words.

EIGHT.

And the dam of ALL HOLY HELL broke loose and spewed forth onto the fertile fields of Cache Valley.

(Personally, I think it was the “Ma’am” part that sent me over the edge. Because who REALLY enjoys being a “Ma’am”?)

I told her that I “WASN’T SCREAMING!”

Which was true, but in a very, very short time, I WAS.

Screaming.

Not talking loudly.

Not yelling.

S-C-R-E-A-M-I-N-G.

LOUDLY.

(Do y’all know just how loud that is for me and my huge voice? FREAKING LOUD is the answer, for those who don’t know.)

Then the wild gesticulation started and it was a frigging free-for-all.

It escalated to the point that she threw my money back at me and slammed the drive through window.

At this point, did I calm down and just go home like my normally sane(er) self would have done on any other day?

NOOOOOOOOOOOO….

I drove around, parked haphazardly, flung open the door to my ’83 wagon and LEFT IT LIKE THAT WITH THE MOTOR RUNNING and ran into the gas station in full on “TO THE PAIN!” mode.

At that point the HOLY HELL that occurred at the drive through was replaced with the ALMIGHTY, NUCLEAR WRATH OF ANGER AND DESTRUCTION!!!

It was like 33 years of repressed, bitter, venomous ANGER all released out of my body in one loud, ugly, terrible moment.

I threw the money back and screamed at her.

I demanded to see her manager and screamed at him.

Then I screamed some more at the woman who was behind me in the drive through line who came in to say that the “Poor attendant” shouldn’t be fired because I was a psychotic hose beast that was clearly disturbed.

Thing is, at that moment?

She was right.

I was standing there, sweating and panting in my pajamas and wildly unkempt hair with no bra on (Which matters because of that whole ‘Nipples hard with fear’ thing) and mismatched slippers. People probably thought I was totally strung out on meth.

I’m a little shocked that the police were not called in. At least if they had been I would have been throughly prepared thanks to the “Don’t Taze me, Bro!” guy.

I took a deep breath, apologized to the manager and got back into my still-running station wagon and drove home to cry.

I know that there are parts of this post that are humorous, but the situation was horrible.

I am so ashamed of myself. I regret my lack of self-control. I regret scaring the bejesus out of customers who probably thought I was going to pull out a handgun and go “Columbine” on their asses. You know, kinda like this:

(Thanks, Photoshop Dave!)

Luckily, there were no children in the store.

Whatever valid and just complaints that I had about this girl were lost in my anger and lashing out. I am beyond embarrassed and will never set foot in that gas station again.

I started my period the next morning. A-ha. It was early and unexpected but the day before I start has gotten worse and worse over the years. I have never, ever responded like this. I don’t entirely blame it on PMS because there was a major event of pain and anger and frustration that happened around my birthday and it sent me in a bit of a spiral about my entire life. I am working through tons and tons of past issues that frankly? I have a lot of suppressed anger about.

It’s sad that I let it loose on innocent people.

Not that Judy was innocent, but still…She did NOT deserve what I dished out.

As for her? She’s still there. The best employee they had quit because they wouldn’t fire her. Everyone was appalled on MY behalf because they cannot stand working with her and they know me to be a kind, friendly, and courteous customer. I found out later that she has had at least a dozen complaints about her and many costumers won’t go there anymore because of her.

I’m trying to keep it in perspective and look on the bright side, which is that this is a big clue that I have got to deal with some issues and take preventative steps to deal with my whacked out hormonal cycle. It is also good that I have cut back on a really vicious and out-of-control habit and that my pocket book is a little fatter because it isn’t all being poured into a 44 oz. cup.

Still…

I feel so horrible and embarrassed about this and it has almost been a month. I know that there will be very few of you who have lost it to this level, but if there is ANYONE out there that has even come close? I would love to hear from you so that I can feel a bit less hideous about myself.

If you’ll all excuse me, I have to go curl up under my blankie in the fetal position…