Sometimes It's Pretty Preposterous

Just taking the recycling out a few minutes ago, I was noticing that the landlord is finally, after eight months of promises, rebuilding the trash enclosure - a simple wooden fence with a gate about ten feet on a side. I noticed the nice new latch that wouldn't fall off and threaten splinters, and that the door was no longer hanging dangerously off of one hinge. A few seconds later, I noticed the sound of the door slamming shut as a gust of wind came to brighten my day. When I turned around, I noticed that I was trapped inside because the landlord did not install one of the nifty latches that has a handle for people on the inside.

The next thing that I noticed was that they had only rebuilt the gate side and that the other three walls were still falling apart, full of splinters and rusty nails. (Terrific.) I can't remember when I got my last tetanus shot, so I tried out several L-shaped twigs to get the latch open, but ones that were small enough to fit through the opening between the doors were too weak to pull up on the latch without breaking. (Terrific!) Once I had four or five fly bites, I decided to take a chance on not twisting an ankle or getting a rusty nail injection or a gnarly under-the-nail splinter and I managed to climb out.

To cheer myself up, I went to get my mail from the porch. As I pulled it out, a cute small envelope fell out of the pile of junk mail. I thought, 'Yay! A card!' But when I turned it over, I saw "RETURNED TO SENDER" scribbled across it - my thank you note that I sent the day of my job interview last week. TEEEE-riffic. There was also a sticker across the address where someone wrote "NOT AT USGS," where of course I was not sending the card in the first place. I had interviewed with an entirely different government agency. Now the man thinks I am not a thank-you-note-sending candidate. Today, I am life's chump.

At least there's always tomorrow.