Lunch break drama

I had an action-packed lunch break yesterday when I went out to pick up a few things for Elijah's big day. At my first stop I got some shiny helium heart balloons and some regular red balloons and some other fun things. One of the heart balloons popped instantly upon getting into my car. I decided not to go back in to get it replaced because I didn't have the time. This was the start of an interesting hour.

Next I went to the grocery store and picked out some cupcakes and some pretty red flowers. I went to pay for these two items in lane 5, but the man working behind the register was being scolded by his manager for scanning the wrong broccoli coupon. This turned into a huge debacle. The poor guy was flustered and embarrassed and apparently he had messed up on more than just the broccoli, so the manager tried to sort everything out.

Five minutes later, I ducked on over to lane 6. In this lane, a customer had grabbed the wrong bag of frozen shrimp for the coupon she wanted to use, so we waited patiently for someone to bring her the right sized bag. Five minutes later, I moved over to lane 11. Eleven is my number, I knew it had to work. And it did.

I was on my way back to work when I looked down to see my empty gas light shining brightly up at me. Oops, it had been shining brightly the night before that, too. So I did a u-turn and went back toward the gas station. As I was waiting to turn left off a very busy road and into the gas station, I started getting impatient with the lack of gaps in the traffic. Finally I saw one, but the gap was small so I knew I was going to have to turn quickly. I had been so focused on the traffic that I didn't realize I had drifted too far foward, so when I turned I was staring straight at a giant curb. I turned sharply to the left like a crazy woman and made it back to the entrance just as the cars whizzed by me.

Heart pounding, I turned into the gas station to find that everyone in the city of Eden Prairie was getting gas at that very moment. Aha, a spot opened up, so I pulled in. Oh, diesel only. I backed out, drove to the gas station across the street and starting pumping my gas. I thought it would be a great time to clean some trash out of my car (since I never do that), so I opened the back door and out flew the heart balloons! UGghghhh! I had had it with all the crap, so the adrenaline kicked in and I made a superhuman leap into the air and caught the ribbons that were attached to the balloons. I stuffed them back into the car, decided I didn't care about the trash in my car, and finished with the gas. And of course, to top things off, I dribbled a little bit of it on my pants. I got in the car and started driving back to work before I got myself killed. A minute later.. Oh, I forgot to grab the receipt!

After all of that, I was perfectly happy to be sitting safely at my desk for the remainder of the afternoon.