No good deed

Today is exactly the reason I hate winters in Atlanta. Yeah yeah, I know I could be in Wisconsin, in which case I would have plenty to bitch about. But it was 65 degrees and raining before sunrise this morning. As I write this, it’s 53 degrees. By tomorrow morning, it’s going to be 27.

How, I ask you, am I supposed to dress for days like this?

So with that frame of reference, I left my office nearly two hours ago with three objectives:

1. Print some photos of my trip to Germany this summer to send to my grandmother.
2. Obtain item #2 on my Christmas Angel scavenger hunt list: a pink backpack
3. Get lunch

First stop: Walgreen’s, because they proudly proclaim that you can print photos from any media in the world, whatever you happen to have. Until you spend half-an-hour loading photos on your USB flash memory stick. Then, of course, you show up to find that their photo computer doesn’t have a USB port. Strike one.

Second stop: The backpack quest. I know some school systems have banned opaque backpacks for safety reasons. Wal-mart to the rescue again: they sell a clear plastic backpack with pink stitching. This gives my angel a bonus: even if her school has restrictions, she won’t have to leave this backpack at home. I know. I’m so thoughtful it scares me.

So I drive cross-town and ask my friendly Wal-mart associate where to find girl’s backpacks. She gives me a one-word answer, and – no lie – the word is lingerie. Apparently I stared at her like she’d just sprouted horns, because she clarified: they’re with the women’s purses, which is next to lingerie. It seems I’m not going to get out of this without confronting my fear of boobies.

In the lingerie section, I find their pittance of backpacks. The only one that’s remotely pink is tiny, cheap, and has some cartoon character on it. Obviously, no self-respecting 11-year-old will want to be seen with this. Strike two. Oh well. I found one at Ross the other day, if it’s still there. Back to the car so that I can spend my dwindling lunch hour driving across town again.

There’s really only one place to grab lunch between Wal-mart and Ross, and it’s McDonald’s. I don’t like it, but I should be able to find something remotely healthy on their menu.

Dear McDonald’s,

In my enduring quest to find healthy food that doesn’t suck, I must let you know that I’ve been disappointed again: your Grilled Chicken Classic still ain’t it. How it is that you let me drive away from your restaurant with 9 points worth of chewy, wet, used tire rubber that’s been assaulted by too much black pepper, I’ll never know. And then the bunu in the drive-thru gave me a coca-cola instead of a diet coke. I don’t know how you sleep at night.

P.S. If chicky ever again hands me a bag without a napkin in it, I’m going to chase her down and wipe my mouth on her head.

We’ll make that strike three, shall we?

Stop four: Ross. Got the backpack, finally, but not before encountering a few other people who need to be run over by their own cars:

1. People who drive too slow.
2. People who ignore traffic signs that say “keep moving."
3. People who position themselves in my blind spot and refuse to move one way or the other.

I’m thinking Ebenezer Scrooge got it right.

Oh, bunu? Remind me to tell you what that means sometime.