screwing up
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-eight years and a million words
I decided to send one of my Minolta XD bodies off to the US for repairs after being told by one local repair shop they wanted more than $200, and being told by another that my particular camera would be impossible to repair in Japan. The fellow in the US wants only $45 plus $20 shipping, so it's a no-brainer. I just have to package it up sufficiently.
The morning I'd heard back from the American repair shop, I'd taken Ken to his daycare as usual. On the way back, I noticed a garbage man taking apart some packages before tossing them in his tiny garbage truck. One of the things he'd just pulled out of the packaging was a set of strips of packing bubbles. Not the usual bubble-wrap, but strips made of two pieces of plastic that were made into discreet bubbles by way of being 'welded' shut at intervals.
I asked the garbage man if I could take them away, and he said yes! Not thinking about it in terms of it being "garbage" (I disclaim this by pointing out, as my mother likes to do, that I am the descendant of two grandfathers who had chased after garbage trucks to retrieve something disposed of by their wives), I set the packing strips down and went about my day.
I told Mari about it excitedly at the end of the day, but my darling wife did not share my pleasure. Because I'd set said 'garbage' on the bed.
I changed the sheets.
Then today Mari spent 40 precious minutes (essentially the only discretionary time she had for the day) going through the ornate website for the grocery store that delivers our goods. She had to get her order in by 22:00 tonight because that was the cut-off and we needed many things delivered next week (especially since Mari has not one but two rare social engagements after hours next week). But when she submitted the form to order the food, the browser couldn't get a response from the website.
Because I had a download going. I stopped the download, but when she went back to the form all of her choices were gone. And then the deadline was passed.
So I'll be hitting the grocery stores on foot next week.