Minor Irritations

Aren't they sometimes more annoying than major woes?

Mine today: my extremely dear friend Rachel arrives tomorrow from Roanoke for a week-long visit, which will include a three-day jaunt up to Aspen for the Colorado Book Awards, as How Oliver Olson Changed the World is a finalist for the Colorado Book Award this year. As I own only one car and my family has three drivers, I decided to splurge and get a rental car so that Rachel and I could play to our hearts' content without depriving the boys of transportation. So I reserved a nice little Chevy Aveo to pick up today at noon.

But when I got there to pick it up, the woman at the desk told me in a chirpy, cheery voice that I was going to get a "free upgrade" as they didn't have any actual CARS on the lot. Instead I would get an enormous mini-van or a humongous SUV. How could I drive such a vehicle? How could I pay for gas for it? How could I make the sliding doors open and shut? ("Oh, they're automatic!" she told me. But nothing like that is automatic for me.)

So now they're going to bring me the right kind of car - that is, to say, a CAR - to my house on Monday, and it will all be okay. But I still feel grouchy and grumpy. No more "free upgrades" for me!

But now that I've vented - one of the joys of blogging! - I'm going to improve my day by going to King Soopers and buying Rockies tickets for a Red Sox game this week and a Cardinals game in July. Nobody can be sad who has a Rockies game to look forward to, right?