Three's Alarming, Not Charming

Last night was a night of three. After a very nice day of lazing around, reading, procrastinating, running a few errands, and then going to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (which was amazing!), my evening was rounded out by three events.

  • On my way out to go get some new furniture at Target, the door to the apartment next door to mine opened. In the doorway stood the two grandchildren of my new neighbor. Running out the door directly toward me was her little brown chihuahua. The dog bound up to me, yipping its little head off, panting heavily. I love dogs, generally, though this one is something of an exception to that love. But I smile amiably and greet the wretched thing, and he gets all excited and starts peeing everywhere (I swear he's part cocker spaniel). Grandson suddenly starts talking, and once the mouth is open, it never stops moving. "Hey, I have blue goggles! Oooh, now you look blue. And hey, so does your mustache!" While grandson is talking, I'm momentarily distracted from giving the damn dog my attention. During grandson's fourth run-through (of seven) of his blue goggle sketch, the dog decided it wanted to mark me as his territory, and lifted his leg in preparation. I promptly stepped backward, said "HEY!", then left promptly.
  • A new Ashley Furniture store recently opened, and happens to be just behind the Target I went to. Thinking I might get ideas for furniture, and secretly hoping to find something nice, I decided to stop by. I'd never been. I opened the door, and then heard an automated voice say "Any available staff, please go to the front desk." Fearing I would encounter a salesperson, I promptly wandered into the store, before anyone could try to stop me and sell me anything. I looked around, and noticed that a vast amount of the furniture there is outrageously expensive. And a fair amount of it is pretty damn ugly, too. While wandering, I got turned around, and for a moment thought I was lost, but then I found the front doors shining from the sunlight, and so made my escape.
  • After my shopping extravaganza, I headed home for the evening, and decided to have a light dinner. After I finished eating, I got up and washed the dishes before returning to finish drinking the remainder of my delicious IBC Root Beer (of the glass bottle variety). As I went to sit down, I took a slightly awkward step. I tried to regain my balance by flailing my left arm wildly in mid-air. I got my balance, but before I did so, the left hand, connected to my flailing left arm, connected with my bottle of root beer. The root beer went flying through the air before crashing spectacularly in a display of fizz, liquid gushing out of the open bottle right out onto the carpet. The carpet, eager to get some action, gulped the root beer at a furious rate, while I grabbed the bottle off the floor and placed it in the sink. I then attacked the carpet with paper towels, soaking up my lost soda as fast as I could. I got the stuff out, and went over all the spots with water and a scrub for good measure.

I'm all for adventurous times, but this was ridiculous. Here's hoping that today is far less full of excitement, at least in such terms as these.