For those that don’t know, a Shih Tzu is a super cute, fluffy little dog.  They come in many different colors, but this particular one, the one that ruined my day, was black and white and more than likely went by the name “Oreo” or “Patches” (no offense if this describes your dog!).  Anyway, Shih Tzu is correctly pronounced “She-Zu”, but most people think it’s pronounced SHIT ZOO.  Well for today, I’m going with Shit Zoo, because that more accurately describes the day.

So how exactly did a 15 lb dog, one that I don’t even own ruin my day?  Well I’m convinced he was the start of a downward spiral that ended with me rolling around on the floor in front of a small audience.  But let’s back up a little.

So this morning at 6:45 am I’m driving out of my housing development when low and behold what’s sitting in the middle of the road but “Oreo” the Shit Zoo.  So being the crazy dog lady, I slam on my brakes and throw the car into park.  I try to get “Oreo” into the car, but he starts to run down the road.  So I get out of the car and try to flag him to his yard with the opened gate.  Unfortunately, Oreo isn’t having it and instead runs to his front door.  I think, “Awesome, I’ll ring the bell, the people will be thankful Oreo is safe and I’ll have saved the day.”  Well as I ring the bell Oreo starts to look like a runner again.  So I ever so gently reach down to restrain Oreo and he starts to scream and yelp like I kicked him with my plant issued steel toed boots.  And of course, as he’s screaming the owner opens the door and gives me the “did you just kick my dog” look.  Great. So after telling the owner the dog was sitting in the middle of the street he looks perplexed and says, “Oh yeah, I took the trash out this morning and left the gate open for him, he doesn’t usually go far!”  What the HECK!?  Seriously?  He doesn’t go far?!  Well doesn’t going far is an easy way for him to be squished.  So defeated, I get back in my car and drive in to work.

I’m later than usual due to my failed “Save the Oreo” mission, but that’s okay, I’ll get back on track.  The day starts with dilemma after dilemma at work.  Departments blaming other departments for errors, employees asking questions about my departure, trying to pass my work on to others and finally an investigation into a results that we found that wasn’t typical, but after daggering deeper into it, the error was identified.  It only took a week and required a lot of paperwork.

Now I’m usually fine with days like this.  They go fast.  But on top of these things, we had vendors coming in, my HR departments asking for Exit Interviews, Doug texting my pictures of shoes (brown slip on or brown with laces?!?) and I received phone calls about health insurance after corporate and phone calls about moving trucks.  Then to top it all off my breast pump BIT THE DUST leaving me stranded to make no lunch for my baby!  From there I took my son to the doctor and then to Sam’s Club to pick up my new tire was available.  See just two days ago we hit a nail in the neighborhood and it destroyed my $250 tire.  Luckily we had road hazard insurance on them and it was replaced for a prorated price of $78.  But Sam’s Club had more great news (heavy on the sarcasm) they also tested my battery and found that it was at the end of its life.  They didn’t think it would even make it through the next few days of 100 degree temperature in Missouri.  Thanks, but no thanks Sam’s.  We’re going to drive this battery until we have to use jumper cables to get her going!

Then to round out my day, Envy and I went to our Wednesday night agility class.  We opted to stay for round 2 of class to hang out with good friends and make up a class we’d miss as we moved.  We had a great time.  Practiced obstacles, down stays, I practiced rolling over….  Yes that’s right, I practiced rolling over.  To bring the Shit Zoo day to a close, I went face down in agility class.  Now how does one do such a thing?  Well I could give you 10 ways all of which I’ve tried but tonight my stop, drop, roll was a result of a dog walk.  Basically, my dog Envy was running on the dog walk and I was running close to her.  She’d been bailing off at the end excited about the next obstacle so I was running a lot closer than I normally would have.  What I didn’t take note of was the “feet” of the dog walk.  So while running, I caught my foot on the feet of the dog walk and went face down ripping skin off of my knee (again) and then rolling because well I hit that hard and fast.  I then “sprung” back up onto my feet like it didn’t happen…except I had an audience of 10.  I limped the remaining course and announced that I would be departing from class before I killed someone.  What a SHIT ZOO kind of day!