I blame Microsoft

Yesterday was a rather interesting adventure. It was one of those nothing quite goes as planned kind of days. It all started when I woke up bright and early at about 730 AM and for some reason all the clocks in the house said 1230PM. FORTUNATELY I had nothing specific that had to be done … well other than needing to go to my sister’s house with my mom to get something my sister left there (she and her family are at "summer camp" for a few months).

Since my mother was driving, I left it up to her when we were going to leave. It is about an hour and fifteen minute ride with no traffic. Mom said early afternoon. So I had my breakfast (lunch?), and promptly sat down to do some useful game playing on the computer. I figured mom would tell me when she was ready to go. A few minutes of saving the world later, I came up for air and noticed that the lying clocks all now seemed to think it was now LATE afternoon. So I asked mom when she was planning on leaving, to which I was sharply told that she was "waiting for me!" Not sure quite when I become the decision maker in this adventure, I replied in a confused manner, then got myself together to go.

We got ourselves on the road, and let the car drive us as we followed the usual path out-of-town. FORTUNATELY, it only took us about 7 minutes to realize that we were on the OTHER usual path, and actually heading in the wrong direction. We corrected that error, and had a fairly uneventful ride until the sudden incontinent cloud had an accident right before the road construction caused traffic jam, testing mom’s reflexes (and the cars breaks). After that it was smooth sailing until we got to the house.

At which point in started going downhill (which is really a challenge because the house is uphill). The key we had fit the door lock nicely. UNFORTUNATELY it was the lock that was actually open, and not the dead bolt that was securing the door. FORTUNATELY we were warned that this might be the case, so had brought the garage door opener. UNFORTUNATELY, the garage door opener did not work. FORTUNATELY, we had sister Lisa’s phone number. UNFORTUNATELY she had no clue how to get in. FORTUNATELY we also had BIL Nathan’s number. UNFORTUNATELY, he had no suggestions either, other than calling the landlord. FORTUNATELY the landlord was home. She showed up a few minutes later with a set of keys and a smile. UNFORTUNATELY she now has no ideas WHAT those keys are for, because apparently it was not for my sister’s house. FORTUNATELY, she knew her husbands phone number, and a quick call located the RIGHT keys. She left and was back a short time later … and we were IN!

I found what we were looking for. Since it was now dinner time, mom and I decided to eat at a local ice cream/ dinner place called Friendly’s. Anyone from the north-east should know it. FORTUNATELY, I have a "smart" phone with Google maps. UNFORTUNATELY, Google maps data for the area was apparently well out of date. It had us go right and travel roughly a mile out of our way to take a left that we simply could have taken. FORTUNATELY we eventually got our meal, and the trip home was pretty much uneventful. UNFORTUNATELY, the 20 (25?) digit code that we were getting so that Lisa could actually use her legally purchased version of Microsoft Office but they will not store in their registration database because it might dampen their multi billion dollar profit did not really help much because she is having computer problems anyway (it is Windows 8 of course), making the whole trip basically a wasted effort.

Yep. I blame Microsoft.