How to ruin a perfectly good day off.

1. Virtuously go for a walk at 6:15 am only to discover that you left the garage door open all night long. Turns out the opener is malfunctioning, so that’s a time-eating repair for someone.

2. Start your day off with no juice, no breakfast, and no coffee because it’s the only day this week you could do your annual fasting blood test. Arrive early to get a jump on the line and watch as a latecomer gets taken back before you and the other four early birds. Seethe inwardly and have an interesting conversation with one of the other early birds, who was also disgusted by the late-comer’s anti-social behavior.

3. Schedule a contractor to do work on the kitchen (at your place of work) on your day off (because he’s put you off FIVE times already and it really needs to be finished) and then have to wonder all day when he’s going to call you to meet him there, how long it’s going to take, and why on earth you made the appointontment on your day off, anyway.

4. Finally sit down to eat breakfast and get a phone call from your father to tell you the day for which he’s scheduled his surgery and needs you to chauffer your stepmother around all day. Keep it to yourself when it turns out to be a day you REALLY needed to not take off work, because it coincides with an annual work event that you’ve had to bail on for the last two years for similar reasons. Feel absolutely terrible about the prospect of telling your co-worker that he’s going to have to handle the day by himself again.

And that’s all before 10:00 am. Looking on the bright side, the day can only get better, right? RIGHT?