Anger Management: Hits and the Missus

   Insert bad word here: #%^%$@. There, don't you feel better? Of course you don't, because swearing is not nearly as therapeutic as drunken pirates would lead you to believe. (I realize the notion that all drunken pirates use frequent vulgarity is a politically incorrect, gross generalization. If I could afford a publicist, he would apologize. He would also tell me they prefer to be called "inebriated sea-dwelling extortionists.") I can curse as well as any sailor, at least on par with a Boy Scout boating on Utah Lake with his mother. Allow me to begin by screaming that if this freaking day gets any fetching longer, I may have a flipping psychotic break. Really, any break would be welcome. I may put myself in a straitjacket (yes, that IS how it is spelled, don't ask how I know) just for the comforting swaddle.
   Before anybody feels any sympathy for me, I really must admit I lead quite possibly the world's easiest existence. Nothing in my life gives me the slightest excuse to complain. I love my dog, my family (not in that order... most days...), my home, and my sweet minivan. But if a minor downside exists to this lifestyle, it is the rise of the tedious errand. Errands are the vampires sucking the precious hours out of our desperate, gasping schedules.  Morning would have to be the jugular vein of the day, because that is where the attack begins and when I begin to feel a little weak. Noon is maybe a vital organ, say a kidney, because the loss of time (blood, in case you have already gotten lost in this metaphor) has now reached a state of crisis. Evening would (obviously) be the liver, because it acts as a filter and let me assure you that by this time of the day I have none.
   Seizing the opportunity our frenzied world has presented them, companies and their salespeople suck us in with pleasant, subtle phrases such as "more convenient," "time-saving," and "if you really love your children you will buy this for them." They neglect to inform us that for every hour we save with a modern convenience, we will spend five hours trying to figure out how to operate it, then an additional ten hours panicking and trying to fix it because we have broken it, then fifteen having it repaired because we are far too uneducated and backward  to even deserve to own a modern convenience. Not to mention the withering stares to which they subject us, because we are obviously the ONLY person EVER who has broken their technologically sophisticated gadget. "You did what?" and "Why did you think that would work?" and "Haven't you ever used a phone before?"
   So, by this time of day, I am having a meltdown of Gothic novel proportions. I have a theory that Dr. Jekyll did not in fact drink any magic potion. By the end of the day doing paperwork to submit to his patients' insurance companies, correcting the errors the bank made on his clinic office loan, and waiting in the shop to get his carriage repaired at a cost twice as much as they quoted him, Dr. Jekyll had his own psychotic break. Not as bad as mine, of course...