Errands . . . ugh!

I had the day off from work today and I had a whole list of errands to run. Usually if I have a day off I plan ahead so that I don't have to leave the house all day - those are my favorite kinds of days. However, I'm still "recovering" from my road trip to Oregon and back and my to do list involved lots of errands.

We all hate running errands, right? Just taking my seat belt on and off 10 times is enough to drive me crazy. It is nice to be able to get things done on a week day though as it's typically not as busy as a Saturday.

I live in a nice little town in the country and that has lots and lots of benefits. The down side is that if you have a list of errands to run chances are you are going to have to leave town. Need some padded envelopes? Not in this town! Need to get new tabs for your car? Think again! An automated carwash? I don't think so! Ok, you get the point, right?

So first I headed east about 6 miles to a nearby town that has an automated car wash, a licensing bureau where you can get tabs, and a quick type oil change place. Perfect. First I stop at the gas station with the car wash. Out of the car (unstrap that seat belt!), in the station and see the big sign: car wash out of order. Perfect. Ok, on to the license bureau. Someone walked in right in front of me (don't you hate that??) and there were already two people in there and there are a total of 2 employees. No problem, I wait my turn and head out. My next stop is the oil change place, and again, someone pulls in right in front of me. Dang! Luckily I brought a book (can you tell I've done this before?) and entertain myself while I wait.

Next I need to travel back to my nice little town with limited shopping opportunities and continue west for 11 miles to the Super Walmart. I know some people avoid Walmart like the plague due to their belief that it's mere existence is killing small towns. I get that, but when I can walk in one store and buy a kitchen rug, a jug of milk and some ring binders, I'm sold. I complete my shopping there and head down the street a couple of blocks to a gas station with a car wash. Just as I'm thinking I can check one more thing off my list the clerk says, "sorry - our car wash is closed". This is when I looked around and thought that maybe I was being punked. Seriously. When I left my house today to run errands I never thought it would be this hard to find a car wash that is IN WORKING ORDER. Do people realize that I have 3,000 miles of dead bugs stuck to my headlights impairing my night vision? AND grossing me out? The friendly clerk, after listening to my exasperated sigh and all out whining suggested that I try the gas station across town that has a car wash. That's how much I was whining. I got my car wash and the clerk at that station surely thought I was nuts when I got so darned excited about it. She has no idea.

So now I'm back home and ready to watch the Minnesota Vikings in a preseason game. I have TGIFriday's buffalo wings in the oven (thanks Walmart!) and Corona in the fridge. Heh.

One more thing. When I was a teenager growing up in this nice little town with limited shopping opportunities there was a hill on the edge of town next to a lake named Spring Lake. The side of the hill was nicely mown and there were rocks painted white that said - yep, "Spring Lake". My friends and I, being huge Springsteen fans, couldn't resist the temptation to sneak out there at night and move a few rocks so that they now said "Springsteen" instead of "Spring lake". Now I'm an adult and the rocks have either been removed or have gown over with weeds. But today, as I was out running errands, I drove past a different hill long the lake and see that someone has once again used rocks to spell "Spring Lake" using regular rocks instead of white. You know they are just taunting me, right? Anyone in?