My day went something like this:

9:03 a.m. Politely ask construction guys if they are going to be parked in my customers' parking spots all morning.
9:03:06 a.m. Construction guy gets attititude
9:03:10 a.m. Different guy (who has absolutely nothing to do with situation) gets in redneck truck, backs into the middle of the street, rolls his window down and proceeds to scream at me about lack of parking in city.
9:04: Moments of "communicating" with redneck guy.
9:05 a.m. Bid insane redneck guy a good day and go into store before I lunge through the window of his big ole truck and strangle him with bare hands.
9:05:10 a.m. Locks store door and turns to go in back to prepare for opening when she hears knock.
9:06 a.m. Unlock door for Chamber of Commerce group and has to tell them NO, I cannot do your newsletter because I already commit to several volunteer efforts in a community that may or may not appreciate them. Does agree to host a business networking event next week (out of sheer guilt).
10:00 a.m. Opens store emotionally exhausted and having yet to eat breakfast.
10:10 a.m. First telemarketer call asking for money.
11:00 a.m. A mom comes in to ask me to donate gift certificates and my time to two different events to local elementary school. Agree to gift certificates and time for one event. Add event to PDA.
11:45 a.m. High school kids come in to sell me a yearbook ad. Promise to buy an ad, but artwork is not ready. Add reminder to PDA.
12:02 p.m. Local paper salesperson leaves message reminding me that ad for paper should be in (more $$).
1:00 p.m. Husband, who got up this morning, let the dogs out, and then went back to bed as I was leaving for WORK delivers lunch and proceeds to bitch about his lunch experience for 20 minutes.
2:20 p.m. Get email from college I work for asking me if I can do more work for them (translation: your 90 hours/week at your bookstore ain't doin' s*** for us). Add reminder to PDA.
4:00 p.m. Customers who used to come in all the time but now frequent another store (due to husband's influence) stop in to ask me to buy something from their kid's school catalogue. Oblige (only because it was a VAT of cookie dough and I was pretending I was eating it right then).
5:10 p.m. Husband calls to say he can't relieve me and work tonight because (get this) HE HAS A JOB, TOO. (How was that extra couple of hours of sleep this morning, honey?!?)
5:45 p.m. Act as sounding board for several friends who needed to talk (and I was glad to do it!)
6:00 p.m. Retrieve cell phone VM from college mentioned above (different department) about contract writing I'm doing for them and why I'm not answering emails and voicemails (even though I have answered every email).
7:10 p.m. Vent on blog in hopes of feeling better.

(In case you were wondering: It didn't work. I still feel like I have had the life sucked out of me by 1000 leeches.)

Enough about me. What do you think about me?

If you are a 40-something man wearing sunglasses in the evening and driving a cool vintage red convertible (*cough* obviously in a mid-life crisis *cough*), you probably shouldn't blast Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" while you're driving down the road.

I'm just sayin'...

I was at the grocery store this morning picking up a few things for the bookstore. When I was checking out, I sat my purse on that little ledge by the credit card machine while I got my card out of my wallet. My purse dumped OPEN TOP DOWN with $18 worth of change, a small bottle of hand lotion from a hotel and a pantyliner (just to mention a few of the 5,000 things laying right there for everyone's perusal). Apologetically, I began to scoop up all of the items when the woman in line behind me says, "Is that your thumb tack on the floor?" (as if it were a crack pipe). I gracefully bend down, pick it up, stuff it in my purse and say, "Doesn't everyone carry a thumb tack in their purse?" I shrugged my shoulders and off I went WEARING MY LOGO BOOKSTORE T-SHIRT SO THAT EVERYONE KNEW EXACTLY WHO I WAS.

(I mean, really, doesn't everyone carry a thumb tack?)

(and no, I won't tell you what I was doing with it...)