I swear, buying chicken and Slurpees should not be a difficult task.

Tonight I went across the street to our local Popeye's, to get some chicken for dinner for myself, Jen, and Carrie. The plan: Get chicken, cross street, get Slurpees, come home, eat.

Oh, yeah, right. Like anything goes according to plan anymore.

I head across the street to Popeye's, and realize I probably need a bit more cash to get the chicken, since they don't take any sort of credit card there. The little ATM thing there beeps and whirs for a minute or so, then spits out a receipt saying "Insuficient funds". Wha?

I just used my ATM card about an hour prior to buy stuff at the supermarket, and that went through fine. A call to call B of A gets me a message that my account is $150 overdrawn. Bullshit. 15 minutes later, when I'm finally no longer on hold, one of the representatives tells me that a charge from Freeway Food (a food delivery service, for those who aren't familiar with it) just cleared, in the amount of $466.11.

Now, I've been kind of hungry lately, but I sure as hell didn't buy $466 worth of food. So, I call Freeway Food to see what happened. Apparently, one of the receipts from a recent order we placed took a while to clear, but it was in the amount of $46.11, not $466.11. Some brain surgeon typoed the entry, and mangled my bank account in the process.

*sigh*

I manage to straighten this out with them (the charge disappears at midnight, not doing much for my immediate cash situation), go home, and get some more money. I walk back to Popeye's...

... okay, interruption. This is all while I'm wheezing because the smog out here is doing a number on my sinuses. Bleh.

I walk back to Popeye's, where the once empty store when I went the first time now has four people in line, and has someone behind the cash register who shouldn't be allowed to use the remote control for a television, let alone be in charge of any sort of small store. I finally place my order, get my food, and walk out of the store.

For some reason, I stopped out front and decided to check my order. Good thing too - the orders of mashed potatoes for Jen and Carrie were, in fact, some jambalaya-looking mixture with shrimp in it. You know, seafood. The stuff my wife is very allergic to, and Carrie's not so hot on either. I walk back into the store, wait a while longer as Brainiac ignores me to deal with some lady, and show him the problem.

"Excuse me, this is jambalaya."
"Yes, it is."
"I ordered mashed potatoes."
"No, you didn't."
"Yes, I'm pretty sure I did."
"No, you ordered jambalaya."
"Okay, you see that little slip of paper over there? What is that?"
"Your receipt."
"And what does it say on there?"
"Mashed potatoes."
"And these are...?"
"Not mashed potatoes."

ARGH. What a dumbass.

Finally, ten minutes later, I have my order intact. I head out of Popeye's, and over to the corner to cross Ventura Blvd. I wait for a minute, see the light change to "Walk", and step into the street.

Where some yahoo runs the red light, and misses me by about, oh, three feet.

Strangely enough, getting the Slurpees at 7-11 didn't involve my bank account being messed up, my order being messed up, nearly being hit by a speeding chunnk of metal and fiberglass, or costing me close to $500.

Ever have one of those days? *sigh*