Murphy's Law

On Tuesday I had one of those days where nothing seemed to go right...

I woke up with a start at 11am realising straight away that I had overslept and was late taking Chester (the tiny crazy robot dog) to the vet. He was booked in for an x-ray at 10.30am. Whoops. Plus I had a sore throat. And my band's CD launch was in two days. Great.

I sprinted through the shower, chucked some clothes on, bundled Chester into the car half strangling him with the doggy seat belt I'd bought recently to prevent him from hurtling through the windscreen at 60kph should I break suddenly.

Made it to the vet in record time explaining breathlessly that I'd overslept and I would understand if I was too late and had to reschedule. "Don't worry," the vet nurse said, "I slept in today too, it's fine." Phew!

So I left Chester in her capable hands, him giving me dirty looks as I said goodbye. Last year he had seven teeth removed under general anasthetic at this surgery. He has never forgiven me.

I dashed home to get some work done before coming back to pick him up in a few hours. The vet took me into her office and showed me the x-rays. "This is his heart. It should be much smaller than this and less round. See here, it's putting pressure on his windpipe which is what's causing the coughing. There's also a build up - here - of fluid around his heart." Diagnosis: congestive heart failure.

I should point out here that Chester has always been a bit of a cougher. And he has a heart murmur. Chihuahuas apparently have soft palate issues, and so sound like they're clearing their throats a lot. But recently, his cough has gone from a little throat clear to a full chested old-man cough. Which is why I mentioned it at his recent immunisation appointment. I should also probably mention that Chester is a non-yappy long haired chihuahua who absolutely adores me, and although he is very dumb he is also extremely cute and I am a bit in love with him. So this is not good news.

The vet prescribed some tablets to help his blood pressure and reduce the fluid build up. I was hoping this wouldn't happen as it's a pain in the ass to medicate dogs, and I didn't want him to be on medication for the rest of his life. He's only 10, which is kind of middle aged in small dogs, so that could be several years. But I also didn't want the old man cough to continue so I had no choice.

She took me out the back to collect Chester, who was sitting in a cage glaring at me. The nurses all fawned over him, saying he's the only good chihuahua they've ever had, or as the vet put it, he "gives chihuahuas a bad name."

I gathered him up and paid the two hundred and something dollar bill (thanks very much, not only do you give me the news that my cuddly companion is seriously ill, but you sting me $200 on the way out) and headed home.

You should have seen me, tiny little tablet in one hand, schmacko in the other, trying to get Chester to take the tablet. He's not as dumb as he looks. Every time I tried to give him the tablet, he turned and went straight for the schmacko. Finally I just shoved it in his mouth, figuring he didn't have enough teeth left to bite me. He spat it out. Little bastard! Eventually I got a spoonful of canned food from the fridge and buried the tablet in that. This is what I have to do every morning now. Great.

I had plans to meet my friend Sandra at 3:15 to see the new dancing movie "Step Up". Sandra is a friend from Le Bop, and we were about the only two dancers left who hadn't seen it. She is just finishing her teaching degree and working odd part time jobs, so like me was available during the day for such events. The beauty of my current employment status is that work can often be shuffled round to fit in with a social life, rather than the other way round.

I gargled some Betadine sore throat gargle in the vague hope that it would kill the sore throat that was nagging me and hopped back in the car.

I was driving into the Jam Factory (a shopping centre with a cinema on Chapel St) carpark at 3:18pm when my phone beeped. Oh shit, she's been waiting for ages and I'm late. But it's not like her to be so anal and ring me when I'm 3 minutes late. What's going on??

The message read: "I'm in Scooter buying shoes". Brilliant!

By the time I parked & arrived at Scooter, Sandra had already bought one pair and was trying on a second. "Why don't I go get our tickets?" I volunteered. The movie was due to start at 3:30. So I scored the tickets and came back to check her progress. "I feel like my mum in these," she was saying. They were a little mum-ish, but she needed sensible work shoes with low heels that looked professional. These shoes fitted the bill. But, they were not yet on sale.
While she deliberated, I wandered to the bargain rack at the back of the store. Within about 30 seconds, I had tried on a gorgeous pair of open-toed snakeskin heels, noted the bargain price, and handed over my eftpos card. I shouldn't really be buying shoes, but they were so cheap!!! And hot!!

We made it into the cinema just as the opening credits were starting. We were the only ones there. Excellent!! We spread out and settled in to enjoy.

The dancing was amazing, the storyline so cliched I could have written it, and the male lead super hot - all the perfect ingredients for a great dancing movie. We came out thoroughly satisfied and Sandra was pumped for the ballet class she was about to take. Her dance partner and her had done a deal - he needed to improve his spinning and she needed to be more glamourous. He agreed to take spinning classes as long as she took ballet.

So Sandra rushed off to ballet and I headed home. I was absolutely starving by this point... lunch hadn't factored into my day yet, so i heated up some leftover salmon & veg stir fry and settled down at my computer to get some more work done.

At some point I realised that if I wanted to wear my new shoes for my CD launch I'd better wear them in. I pulled the SALE sticker off the sole and sprayed them with waterproof & left them to dry. When I finally pulled them on and took a few steps I teetered. Huh? They had fit like gloves in the store. I had tried them on in a hurry, but the clincher in buying them was that they fit perfectly and the leather was so soft I thought they'd be comfortable and easy to walk in. I took a few more steps and each time I did the slingback on the right shoe fell off causing the shoe to wobble. Not good. Cranky at my poor impulse buying I yanked them off and went back to work.

I had a break to watch Australian Idol at 7:30. I'm hopelessly addicted and this was a world first - the remaining 7 idols were to perform their own original songs. Yay! It was I think the best show so far this year, and they should always be allowed to play their own songs. In my humble opinion!!

During an ad break I picked up one of my poor discarded new shoes to examine it. They were so gorgeous, what a shame I would have to take them back. Something caught my eye. On the inside of the shoe I was holding, there were some tiny silver letters and numbers. D40752 9. The first part was obviously the model number, I had worked in retail long enough to know that. But 9??? I would have guessed that was the size. I am not a size 9. I turned the shoe over and my suspicions were confirmed. Imprinted into the sole below "Made in China" was the number 9. Definitely the size. No wonder they didn't fit.

I picked up the other shoe, which was a size 8. 8!!!! So somehow between me trying them on and getting the box from out the back the girl had managed to switch one of the 8's for a 9 and box them up. Dammit!! Well at least that meant I wasn't going crazy, the shoes had undoubtably fit in the shop, it was just that I was trying to wear two different sizes now. But it also means I have to go all the way back to South Yarra tomorrow and swap the 9 over. On the day before my CD launch. Who has time for that??!!! And knowing my luck they would be the last 2 shoes left and they wouldn't be able to track down the other size 8 and I'd have to give back these gorgeous shoes. Dammit.

After Idol I set about crossing some things off my list. I'm a bit of a compulsive lister. Leading up to the CD launch there was a lot to be done, compounded by the fact that I was flying to Brisbane the following day for a week's holiday with Adam. Adam is an IT contractor, currently working a 6 month contract in Brisbane, a two hour plane ride north of where we live in Melbourne. I had booked the flights a few weeks ago... the launch preparations had been quite stressful and I figured a week in the sun would be just what I'd need. But I didn't really factor in the increased stress that would be induced by having to get everything finalised before then. Oh well, only a few more days and I'd be there.

One of the things on my list was the washing. I had done most of it over the past few days but had a few items that needed to be handwashed. One of them being an amazing red & white candy striped dress I'd found recently on sale for $40!!! I had worn it twice, once in my band's recent photoshoot and once to a wedding. I was planning to wear it to Derby Day - part of Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival. It was a perfect dress for the races, I couldn't wait to find a hat or fascinator to go with it - I had a girly shopping outing already planned for this purpose. So, I filled the sink with warm water and plunged the dress in. The water started to go pink. Uh-oh. Should've used cold water. It'll be ok, I'll give it a rinse and a spin in the machine & it'll be fine. Shit. It's not fine. The bottom half is still red and white but the top half is now red and white!!! Shiiitt!!!!

"Hi dad, is mum there?"
"Hang on"....

"Hi, what's up?"
"Oh mum I've just ruined the best piece of clothing I've ever owned!!"
"Oh no, what happened?"
"The red and white stripes have turned red and pink!!"
"Oh dear. I'm not the expert on this..."
"I know but I LOVE this dress!! I HAVE to fix it!!"
"There is something called Run Away you could try."
"I know, I already thought of that, but I've tried it before and it says on the packet it's only for use on white fabric."
"Hmm... maybe you could try it anyway. Go to the supermarket and see if there's anything else like that. If not maybe you'll just have to try it. You probably can't make it much worse!"
"Thanks mum, you're a lifesaver."

I went to Coles (i should point out it's about 10:30pm by now) and found the sachet of Run Away. I read the back carefully, and it said NOT FOR USE ON COLOURED FABRIC. Dammit. It also said FOR COLOURED FABRIC, TRY COLOUR-SAFE RUN AWAY. Bingo!!
I sprinted up to the counter. Do you have this for coloured fabric??

Several phone calls later the poor check out chick established that not only this store didn't have it, but neither did any in a 10km radius. Panic was rising in my throat. I decided to buy the sachet anyway, like mum said, I probably couldn't ruin the dress much more. In the car I had a thought & pulled out my phone.

"Safeway Prahran, please" I said to the call connect operator. I realised that just because Coles didn't stock the product didn't mean their competitors didn't.

Half an hour later I was driving back from Prahran (my second trip to Chapel st in a day) smugly with the sachet of Colour-Safe Run Away tucked in my handbag. Disaster averted. Maybe.

I followed all the instructions and pulled the dress out of the machine half an hour later. It looked better... but still not perfect. There was still a hint of pink in the white stripes. Bugger. After all that! But it was better than before, maybe when it dried it wouldn't be noticeable at all. Adam suggested maybe I could go back to the store and buy the dress again, if it was so cheap and I loved it so much it would be worth it. It was a possibility but I was pretty sure I had gotten the last one in my size so I doubted they'd still have it. Oh well. At least it was immortalised in the photoshoot. I guess if it looked terrible now I'd just have to find a new dress for Derby Day, wouldn't I?

So that was my terrible Murphy's Law day, I went to bed in a foul mood with a nagging sore throat thinking I just wish this CD launch could be over so I can be lying by the pool in my bikinis, book in one hand and cocktail in the other, with all this stress a distant memory.