In the world of all things not good this week, these are gnats.  But as the week winds to a close, I have to wonder who dialed my number and awarded me queen of annoying gnats this week?

Let's take just the past 24 hours.  

In the early morning hours between that state of being awake and not wanting to be awake, I laid under the covers with two small lumps named Lulu and Phoebe plastered to my side, entwined in numerous fleece blankets they call theirs.   I reached over to brush my fingers over the hair of the nearest warm four pawed creature, which was Lulu.    I rubbed my finger over her tiny ear and moved to rub the other, but I felt a lump that shouldn't be there.  I quickly went back to the first ear and memorized the landscape and went back to the other side.  I felt the lump and was trying to approximate its distance from her ear when I placed my finger on something gooey and not her ear.   You know that stupid halloween kid party trick where they blindfold you and make you stick your hands in stuff like spaghetti or um, tapioca?   Yep.   Tapioca.   That is what a Boston Terrier eyeball feels like.   I missed the ear entirely apparently.  And her head is about the size of an apple. 

Now I was truly awake.

I finally get to the computer to check my email.  I don't have any idea why I anticipate email when I usually only get mail from spammers that my spam filter thinks I would enjoy.  To sign in on the desktop, it reveals how many emails await.   I am overjoyed when the number is more than five.   Can you imagine my heart a flutter when I saw 2603 emails awaited me.    Oh the funny little machine is making a joke.   I sign in and open the email and well, it wasn't funny anymore.   The inbox had 2603 emails.   Duplicates galore and almost all from 2004.    Someone had a bad night at Comcast.

I call The Geek to ask him to check his email and sure enough he has several hundred.   My only recourse is to call Comcast.   I get through easily which should have been a clue.   The  12 year old from Armenia asked me if I got an email about the update?   Oh yes, I said.  Several hundred in fact.   But the update didn't warn me that everything ever on the server since the beginning of time would be dumped on my machine in several multiples (maybe so I wouldn't miss it?).   The notice only said that there would be an "upgrade" and wouldn't I want to buy some other services too?  Since she would have been about 7 when most of these emails were originally  created she had to go get some assistance.  Apparently everyone got lots and lots of duplicates.   Just for fun.   Delete them she says.   Humm.   Seems I already did that.  In 2004.   Lesson?  Emails NEVER go away.   I'm thinking of opening a new email account somewhere else and just walking away.   Why not?   Sometimes when the mess is too big and the housekeeper quits, the only thing to do is leave.

At Whole Foods (Hi Tequila and Mom!) I went in search of new vitamins for the L&P.   I needed something that only had 100% of the RDA because dogs don't need 3000% of anything.   Apparently no one wants 100% of anything anymore.   She suggested children's vitamins, but those aren't even 100% and dogs are not children.   They aren't human either, but they are adults though they act like 2 year olds most of the time.   In any case, I am guessing she had some fun when she got home that night talking about the crazy old crone who wanted vitamins for her dogs.

But that wasn't the most fun at Whole Foods.  I had to buy ground chicken for the beasts because I cook for them, thus the vitamin need.   About 40% of the time Whole Foods will sell me meat that smells awful and I have to return it.  So I always ask to smell the stuff.  Hey!  Don't make fun of me.   It makes it easier on all of us.   So I ask to sniff the stuff I want (and I will always buy it if it smells right).   So I ask to smell the chicken and the woman who already looked pissed off having to help me yells out to the the taller guy, her supervisor I suppose, and loud enough for everyone from the cheese section to the dairy section to hear, "Hey!  This lady wants to SMELL the meat.   She can't touch it!  She can't touch the meat!  She ain't allowed to touch to the meat?  Right?"    How many shades of red are there?    The guy yells back, though he is only about 8 feet from her, "Let her smell the meat!  She ain't asking to touch the meat!  She wants to smell the meat!  Give her the meat to smell!"    The woman, looking ever more pissed yells back, "I cannot give her meat to smell!  I ain't tall enough to reach!  And she cannot touch the meat (damnit)"

I bought the chicken.   And stayed red.

Ring ring.    I hate the telephone.  It is the 55th call from the robo messenger "Last chance ever to lower your credit card rates.....", in that stupidly excited, yet school marm wicked voice.   I usually hang up, but today I am done with this.  I hang on.  I wait for the real person to come on the line.   "Hey, this is Nick, what's your name?"  Me.  "Nick, just wanted to tell you I've written down the number and am reporting it to the FCC cause you guys are so annoying and won't stop calling - take me off the list."   Nick.  "Yeah?!  You think so huh.   Hah.  Whaa number, huh?  Whaa number you reportin?   036?   Hah.  You won't be the first person to try.  Good luck with that!  Hah!"  Click.   He' s probably a credit card phisher.  But I reported it anyway.

Speaking of reporting.   The White House is having a little trouble with the email and computers.   That should have been a clue that when I got to the FCC website and there was an online form, that it was just too easy.  It says up front, you can't save this form after you fill it in, so you have to print it if you want a copy.   I fill it all in online and sign it electronically and look for the submit button.   Oh oh.   Sure, you can fill in the online form, as many times as you want.   But eventually  you have to print it.  Mail it snail mail.  Fax it.  Or even better, scan and insert into an email and send it.   Snail mail won.   I was not so upset about this because I figure within a couple of years and and an IT czar in place, these things will work a little better.    Hey, Obama kept his crackberry!

I wonder how much can go wrong making pot roast?