Friday, March 11, 2011

Senior Moments .... Already?

Twas raining cats and dogs yesterday. The kind of rain that sends vehicles hydroplaning into each other and off the road. The kind of rain that makes for extremely muddy puppies. And the kind of rain that keeps folks from shopping in full force. And so began my day ....
We were not terribly busy yesterday. I was working the closing shift and cut my staff down to the minimum required to function. We were able to close at the proper time (usually we end up closing much later) and I was happy thinking I would be home snug in my bed by 10:30pm. I am a creature of routine and quickly went through my procedures in a timely fashion. We were all walking out the door by 9:55pm.
I punched in my alarm code as I was walking out per usual but this time I received an error message.
Huh?
(I once interviewed a gent who said, "I don't mean to throw a monkey in your wrench.")
I was not familiar with the error message or what to do when I see an error message, so that really threw a monkey into my wrench, for sure! A series of checks and balances and trouble-shooting on the phone and 9:55pm turned into 10:38pm and I finally left the store secured for the night.
Right?
I was driving home through the rain. At that time of night with no traffic, the drive takes between 30 and 35 minutes. That is just about enough time for my brain to second guess itself six or seven dozen times.
While I vividly remembered checking and rechecking the locks, by the time I reached home at 11:15pm there was .01% of me that wasn't entirely positive the upstairs door was locked.
Drat!
I KNEW it was locked. But my stupid old brain questioned me.
Oh my God! Did I lock the door? I swear I locked the door! Oh no! I left the door unlocked!
So I grabbed my puppy, Puzzle, and drove back to work just to check. I won't even tell you what my brain put me through on the way back to work! It was quite nearly a full fledged panic attack, to say the least.
I pulled into the garage and took a very curious Puzzle with me to check the locks. THEY WERE ALL LOCKED, OF COURSE! The entire premises was extremely secure as it should be and always is ...
I loaded Puzzle back into the car and began driving back home again (it was now midnight). It was still raining and windshield wipers freak her out a bit so Puzzle was in my lap. I was in the far right lane when I stopped for a red light and two police vehicles stopped in the other two lanes next to me. I got Puzzle squared away in the back seat (off my lap) and waited for the green light. When the light changed, I proceeded with caution .... not too fast, not too slow. Don't want to get pulled over for any reason. I pulled forward at a normal speed and looked into my rear view mirror only to see both police cars still sitting at the stoplight!
Oh my God! Did it turn green? I swear the light turned green! Oh no! I just ran a red light in front of two police officers ....

.... it was green. I think they were just messing with me because I am an old lady!