A Death by a Thousands Cuts

I am having a bad day. Every little thing is going wrong for me today. At least since after lunch. I spent two hours working on a special gift for my secret pal. After all the time (and expense) it's just not working. A total waste. Then my four year old comes into the kitchen to tell me he's "messed up" his big brother's bead collection. (There are hundreds of beads that my six year old has been sorting into separate containers for well over a year). I go into the living room. Apparently "messed up" means "poured all over the hardwood floor and mixed." I immediately go into evil hissing mommy mode and make him [Okay, I just killed a bug on my monitor and it has fallen into, and become logged in, my keyboard. That kind of day.] help me clean the damn mess up. He does and then I knock over the container we're putting all the beads in so we have to scramble all over the living room again to pick them all up. Then the toilet backed up. Then I went to get my older son from school. I can't even remember what triggered it but he got into a really pissy mood and we started to leave. He stopped on the sidewalk outside the playground and started to scream so shrilly that two other mothers came sprinting over to see what was wrong. We got home. More shitty behavior. The toilet backs up again. Then I announce I'm leaving. (Wes was home.) I am going to run some errands. I go to the post office to mail a package where they have an automated machine in the lobby that's open until 9:30. The machine is broken. I go to the mall to exchange a book I got as a present at Barnes & Noble. They will only offer me the discounted online price for my exchange but want to charge me full price for the book I want in exchange. In other words, they want to earn $7.50 because I don't have a receipt. For a gift. I looked at the woman behind the counter and said "Fuck that." Okay, I said, "Forget that" but I was thinking "fuck that." I left and went to the toy store to get Hullabaloo for the boys for Valentine's Day. No Hullabaloo. (It wasn't at B & N either.) I go to Land of Nod to get them Nok Hockey instead. It's been discontinued. I get in my car. I cry.

I see that I'm shifting tenses all over the place but damn it! I just don't care...