Saturday, 15 January 2000...
Karen and I were planning on going to Wichita to visit her sister and mother, as I had mentioned.
Well... I had a really shitty night trying to sleep. As I have mentioned before, I think that I'm allergic to Sam the cat. Karen agreed to keep the cat out of the bedroom...
Well, I woke up at 04:00, snot pouring out of my nose and eyes burning... like I'd been tear-gassed (yes, I have, I know what it's like...) and really pissed when I discovered Sam in bed with us.
I was in a rare (for me) bad mood, and Karen was none too happy either. But we continued our preparations... started loading the Subaru up... and I noticed that it had an odd lean to it as I was getting into the driver's seat... the front door of the house was locked and we were ready to go.
I asked Karen to look at the tire... she reported that it was flat.
I was justifiably pissed. The tire had been just fine, except for I had to put air in it about once a month... so I got it fixed, and the next morning it's flat.
And the jack that came with the Subaru was a piece of shit, like the jacks that come with most cars. And the lug nuts were a bitch to get off. Skinned the knuckles several times and damned near wore myself out doing that.
And I really hate driving on those damned space-saver doughnut tires.
The guy at the tire place knew I was pissed when I walked in the door, and he was very accommodating. The valve stem was leaking, so he replaced that and remounted the tire and I was on my way with nothing but a sarcastic thank you to the guy.
When I got home and I was washing my hands, I told Karen that I thought that she'd better go on without me, that I was not going to be good company.
I was expecting (hoping) that she's talk me out of it, but I was Really. Very. Wrong. About. That.
Damned if she didn't just go off without me.
Yes, she was very pissed.
There is one great thing in my life that I have missed. I have a character deficiency.
Whenever I'm around someone who's in a bad mood, I can almost always get them into a good mood.
However, when I'm in a bad mood, nobody can get me into a good mood.
Kinda like, everybody's happy to receive, but when Doug needs a mood elevation? Tough it out.
It's a different form of rejection.
And it seems to be universal.
I really hate behaving childishly.
Anyway, I spent the day by myself, trying to get another computer running out of the junk parts I've got laying around. Failing.
I called Karen at her sister's in Wichita and told her that I was sorry and that I loved her. She was OK with that, she was sorry too and she loved me too.
So I watched some movies on HBO/Cinemax/Whatever. Nothing interesting. Cop shows... all cop shows.
Then I stayed up until about 03:00.
I didn't like Saturday at all.