Salad Dressing and Shattered Glass

I requested my application for Irish citizenship last week. It turns out being a citizen of Ireland doesn't hurt your American status, plus it offers the bonus of being able to travel with ease through European countries who tend to be more sticky in terms of work and travel.
You have to love Ireland. If your grandparent was born on the Emerald Isle, you too may be eligible to be a bonified Celt. My grandmother's going to be thrilled.

The return to 'normal' life has been filled with a lot of busyness and distractions I've been trying to interact with at a safe distance. Believe it or not, the best parts of my week were pretty inconvenient. First, I smothered my cell phone in salad dressing. Accidentally (in case that wasn't obvious). The next day not only was it greasy, it didn't work. Once it meets dressing, your cell phone will never be the same.
I waited, literally, hours behind an angry woman with a fanny pack yelling at the girl behind the counter. You could tell that this lady's last nerve had just been karate chopped, and the rep was stuck at the epicenter. You could see the blood vessels popping in both their faces. I've been that rep before. Unfortunately, I've also been that lady. It's true... I, too, wore a fanny pack at one time.
I used my wait to read in the sunny pocket of a window. Being forced to sit and wait isn't always a bad thing, and the lady eventually got things worked out. Either that or she ran out of steam.

The second trauma was when my car got landscaped. A nearby weed wacker sent a rock flying through the passenger window, which completely shattered. My car was in a school parking lot at the time, thanks to some job training we had in the lunchroom. The head janitor stood explaining what had happened while I listened to the slow crackle that was still spreading across the window. I opened the door to peruse the damage and *carefully* clicked it back in place. Which of course caused all the glass to fall out...into my car.
I know having your window shattered is bad news. But rather than being upset, I was just glad to be pulled out of training, which had come to the "okay, practice for three more hours the exact same thing you've been practicing all day" point. And because it was on school property, the school district is supposed to pick up the tab anyways. The janitor vacuumed the passenger side of my car, which now looks immaculate and shamed me into cleaning the rest of my car.

All in all I got a break from boring training, a clean car, a new window and something to blog about. While I sit here trying to keep from falling under the wheel of normal life, that's something.

As for my phone, the kid at the store just gave me a new one, despite the whole salad dressing thing. I celebrated by setting the theme from "Doug" as the ringtone.