To start the day off, I wake up at my usual crappy time of five a.m.. I felt tired. My night of sleep was useless. I had not received a full rest as needed. It was raining outside and dreary as usual. The summer of 2003 in the north east has seen more rain than Seattle! The good thing is that it is Friday and I get out of work early. Ten-thirty a.m. sharp! Just so you know I hate my job with a passion. It is a true hell!

I love Fridays. I do all of my shopping, buy a DVD or two, buy some CD’s, as well as my weekly needs like food for the week. I also treat myself to some fast food joint, a little escape from the hellish work week. I have come to enjoy this routine. Now on this particular Friday I needed a change of scenery. Usually I shop at Wal-mart( besides, there are no other retail stores left!) I also like Circuit City and Home Depot. So I took a ride far from where I live to a stretch of road that features all of these stores. Well, what is a 20 minute trip turned out to be TWO HOURS!

So I am in my truck, my music is playing, a Sting CD, and I have been stressing over a decision of whether or not I should take this radio broadcasting job that is available for me. My stress level is growing. I thought this little shopping road trip would help relieve the stress. I was wrong. I held in my temper as a series of asscracks cut me off in traffic, tailgated me, went through red lights, and didn’t signal. I just turned up Sting and began to sing along. Thoughts in my head were how I would do my own radio show if I went through with it. The title would be "The Mike Burke Radio Broadcast."

I take a right onto Route 5. It should be about ten minutes before I enter the area of the stores I will visit. I ride along the street. Traffic is not too bad. I now see flashing lights ahead. There has been an accident. A bad one. There are a couple of ambulances. The road has been blocked off. The officer points to the right. So, I go down this street and follow the others. We all end up at a dead end! Great! Now what! Where the hell do I go? I don’t know this area. I am tired and want to get what I need and go home. Well, I get out of this dead end and just go. I try to guess where to go. I figured I was on my way to finding a way back onto Route Five past the accident. It is now 20 minutes later and guess what happens? I am now on Route 22 where my trip started, the very road that hooks up to Route Five. BEFORE THE ACCIDENT! I now have to do this all over again! I am familiar with this area and a well-known music theater is up the street. It provides another way of getting back to Route Five, hopefully past the accident. Okay, so I go this way. It is a long road in the country and is scenic, comfortable, but long. I pass the theater and this is taking forever. I see a road coming up and I decide that this would be a good way to get onto Route Five.

While heading to Route Five, which I can now see, I nearly get hit by a jackass truck driver. He nearly took the side of my truck off with his eighteen wheeler. I come upon a railroad track and the light turns yellow. I am past the stop line. Now the way this is set up, it’s a four-way crossway. The traffic is coming from everywhere. So where I am is set back far from Route Five. The traffic is too heavy for me to go through the yellow light and take the left. I must stop. I wait at this unbelievably long light. I fear if a train comes through, the gate will come down and crush me and my truck. The light turns green and I take the left. To my surprise and anger I am back at the accident. How the f- - did this happen? Now I must turn around and go back through the road I just came from. Not one moron would let me out of this parking lot and back onto the road. There was no where for them to go. The road was blocked off. But these inconsiderate morons just kept passing me. I get into traffic and come back to the stop light. The train was now passing through. Boy did I get lucky. If I was a few minutes late I would have been in big trouble! Finally after awhile I reach Wal-mart.

Wal-mart went well. I walked in, found what I needed, cashed out with no line, and was on my way. I thought "wow, maybe my luck has changed." I thought too soon. Home Depot was next on my list and directly across from Wal-mart.

I pull into Home Depot and park my truck, my list in hand and headed in. First up was the trim pieces I needed. I find the isle and what you know. It’s closed off! Okay, I will just go grab the sheets of wainscoting panels I need and then come back. When I returned, the isle had opened and the next stop on my list had been closed off. So basically I had to walk around in circles waiting for them to reopen! Lastly, I wanted to save time and money and cut my wood here. So I measured it out and used the convenient hand saw they had set up. Done, now I can cash out and end this miserable day. Stupidly, I did not get a cart like I should have. I thought I could just carry it all. So as I try to bring this stuff to the cashier as I continuously dropped boards. No problem I will lay my material down and go look for a cart. Well, I could not find one! Not one! The store workers had carts all over the store with crap all over them. Not one was free. I left the building and checked out the parking lot. NOTHING! I had enough. I just got in my truck and left. It felt strange leaving all the wood lying on the floor in one of the isles.

The next Home Depot was about ten to fifteen minutes away. I made sure I got a cart. Of course the cart I got squeaked and made more noise than a garbage truck! I repeated everything I had done at the other Home Depot and not to my surprise the isle I needed to get my wood from was closed! Once again I had to cut my wood. This time I had to wait for someone to finish. So I waited, and waited, and waited some more, and waited . . . Come on already! He then proceeds to gaze at his saw cuts knowing I’m waiting, finally he moves out of the way, I cut my wood, and cash out.

I don’t have a big finish. That was the end of my hellish day. I could fabricate an ending. How about this? I arrive home to complete my home project, only to find that my entire house sunk into the Earth. Oh, and I was abducted by aliens.