Lunch Break Lessons (Getting Schooled in Learning How to Take Things in Stride)

I had a very stressful lunch hour. There was unnecessary and ridiculous traffic going east-bound on 494 between Hopkins and Bloomington, which really should only take me less than 20 minutes. The ONE place I needed to go to get gift cards was having issues with their gift card/credit card systems and the service didn’t help much, and I was reminded – many times – that this will likely be my Malibu’s last winter.

Revelations I Had (or re-had) Over Today’s Lunch Break:

• I need snow tires. Or at least – new tires.
• I need new wiper blades.
• I need an oil change.
• Hell, I need a new car.
• Driving from Hopkins to Bloomington over the “slow” lunch hour isn’t necessarily a good idea.
• Walking into an in-store mini crisis (EFT systems down!) is really bad timing after having been slightly stressed out because of the traffic.
• Store employees should *not* act like you are inconveniencing them by wanting to by a gift card and pay with a credit card because their credit systems are down.
• A simple, “I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” or “Thank you for your patience” goes a long way; sighs of frustration and inconvenience on the other hand, do not and make me want to turn around and shop elsewhere.
• Then again, I should probably go a little easier on said store employees when faced with such an issue so close to Christmas. I’ve been there; it sucks no matter how nice you are to the customers.
• I am so over the snow in parking lots. Snow on the grass? Fine. Snow on the side of the roads (because plows and ice-trucks have already been out)? Fine. Snow in parking lots where I have no traction and my brakes like to stop working? I could do without that.
• See the part above about needing new car parts or a new car in general.

Sure-fire ways to get over all of the stressors listed above (lunch hour traffic, disappointing customer service, a car that feels like it wants to hurt me and running out of time on my lunch break)?

1) Cloud Cult (“Pretty Voice” in this case) – If you can be stressed out while listening to Cloud Cult, you have no heart.
2) Telling yourself to get over it and finally laughing at how ridiculous you sound, in your car, by yourself, cursing anything that comes within a 10′ radius of your tense little bubble.
3) Bacon. In this particular instance, on my Crispy Chicken Club from Wendy’s which initially tasted good, but has now left me wanting to curl up in a ball under my desk and take a nap.

Tagged as: Twin Cities traffic, whining