I Am Mr. Crab Pants

The Shirelles once sang, "Mama said there'd be days like this." And most certainly, we all get our fair share of them.

Granted, the song was more about facing hard times in life and listening to the soothing reason of motherly advice to help get through the woes of living sometimes.

My day was just one of those days. The kind when you feel like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Which can be an odd thing to say for me since I sleep on the same side of the bed and get out of the same side of the bed every day.

I sleep on the right side and my wife sleeps on the left side, and I'd have known if I'd rolled off her side since I'd have surely felt that. And she'd have probably slugged me for rolling over her.

Part of it may have been that I had to get up earlier than usual to travel on business for work. But that's something I do often. The morning started out well enough. I had my coffee and did my duty in good time—I don't like having to use public restrooms to do my business if you know what I mean. I was off and running earlier than I thought I'd be off and running.

But I felt crabby. I felt crabby when I left, and I felt crabby throughout the day. I still feel a bit crabby as I write this. And the day didn't necessarily help to stifle my crabbiness either.

Which is a funny thing about days like this. Things just don't go right no matter what you do, and you often wonder, are they not going right because I am crabby, or is my crabbiness projecting on my environment and mucking things up wherever I happen to be?

For one thing, I needed gas. I drove a little farther down the road to get to a Casey's because I simply like their stores and the bathrooms are usually suitable enough. Just for #1 of course. Like I said before, I don't like to do the other thing in public restrooms.

Most of the pumps had "out of order" bags hanging on them. Only two pumps had diesel, which is what I needed. The other one was bagged and the pump that was open had a car sitting in the stall.

Not pumping gas, mind you. Just sitting there. I pulled in behind it and waited.

Finally, after some time, the guy came out of the store and went to fill his tank. I thought that was an odd way to do it since I normally start pumping and then go inside.

Nonetheless. No big deal.

I checked my phone to see if the Casey's I was at was offering Upside, which is an app that pays cash back for certain participating places. They did. That was a plus.

The guy saw me peeking over at him a couple of times and finally gestured me. I rolled my window down.

"You waiting for gas?"

"Yeah. I need diesel is all, which is why I am at this pump. No worries." I told him and smiled. It was a bit of a forced smile.

"The card reader's not working," the man told me. "You have to pre-pay inside."

That's something I did not want to do. I did not want to have to wait for him to finish, park, and then go inside to pee and get my gas paid for. Besides, the company truck is a guzzler and I really wasn't sure how much it would take. If I couldn't fill it up I'd just have to stop again sooner and that would just slow me down.

"I'll just go somewhere else. Thanks," I said and drove down the street a ways back towards the onramp to the freeway.

Most of the those pumps had "out of order" bags on the nozzles as well. What gives? But the diesel pump was open. I inserted my card and began pumping my gas and went inside to use the restroom.

Naturally it was a single restroom and someone was already in there. I stood and waited and perused nothing I really cared to peruse outside the area of the restroom. Time went on.

"This guy's doing his business in there," I knew. Not only did I not want to stand there and wait—besides, I didn't have to go real bad and I was just wanting to take full advantage of the stop—and I was not wanting to have to pee inside a wall of foul odor from someone else either.

I went out to move along.

The pump screen asked, "Would you like a receipt?" I said yes. I need them to expense them to be reimbursed by my company at the end of the month.

The paper was out, and I threw my hands up. Lately this has become a thing where the paper is out and the attendants don't seem to bother making sure the rolls are taken care of.

Any other day it may not have bothered me as much. But I was crabby. And this stop had already eaten up way more time that I wanted it to.

I walked back into the store and told the lady there, "I'm going to need a receipt for whatever the hell that pump is with the black truck."

I was quite flippant. I'm crabby remember. And I was irritated too. Otherwise, I'd have probably not said it that way.

Being that I was crabby, that was of course not the end of it. I took my receipt and told her, "You know, this is becoming a thing lately where nobody wants to take care of the paper rolls anymore. It's a bit annoying," and walked out again.

It wasn't her fault. Or maybe it was. Either way, I was crabby you know.

I did eventually get to pee in Springfield, Missouri. The bathroom was an abomination. Most public restrooms can be and normally I just chalk it up as a public restroom.

But today I almost told the clerk, "Your restroom is a hellhole and somebody should get in there and clean it."

But I kept my mouth shut and just went on my way.

On top of that, I simply wasn't into the trip. I wasn't into talking to my customers. It's hard sometimes to mask how you really feel—although I can pull it off most of the time.

Not today.

I still had good conversations with my customers. I am not sure they picked up on my mood. I hope not. That's never a good thing. But I simply knew all I wanted was to get on with the next stop and just finish my day.

My last stop would be in Fredonia, Kansas and that's still a couple hours from Wichita where I would be holding up for the night. I was not looking forward to the extra driving.

But oh well. What can you do, right?

I was a two-lane and I swear, if there was a slow moving semi, there he was right in front of me. I kept wanting to pass, but the oncoming traffic was in the way too. Along the way there are passing lanes luckily, and I'd speed past the trucks just to get to the merge and right behind another one.

At some point the urge to pee came again and I knew there was a rest stop ahead a ways. I've done this route many times and know it well. I'd just stop there as I usually wind up doing anyway.

I parked and walked to the entrance only to find that the doors were chained shut with a sign that read, "No water. Do not enter."

It seemed it would have been a better idea to put "closed" on the sign before the offramp. It would not have mattered to me any other day—not that it would not have annoyed me. But today I was crabby and it crumpled my undies.

I thought about taking advantage of a tree just to prove a point. But with my luck being what it is I would probably have been arrested.

I just held it until I got a little bit before Augusta, Kansas where I knew there would be another one, and the urge was not urgent enough to stop sooner.

Eventually I got to the hotel in Wichita. At least they got my room right. I prefer to not be on the parking lot level, and they put me on the second floor. Perfect. Onward and upward to an ice-cold beer. I feel better now that at least the working part of the day is over.

But I am still crabby.

Lead image courtesy of Pixabay, user jayers. Crab Crabby Angry - Free image on Pixabay

Like how I write or what I have to say? You can find more of my writings published in other places at https://www/facebook.com/jimbauerwrites

Normally this is where my sponsors block would go, but I have not been able to add this block for some time. But please do check out Unity, he's my only sponsor right now and very much worth reading. Also, check out Coolmidwestguy. He really is a cool guy from the Midwest and also very much worth reading.

A special thank you is in order for each and every one of you who follow me and what I do here. Thank you, thank you. It's something I don't often do, but I figure this is a good enough spot to offer my thanks. I really do appreciate you.

And thank you to admin and Rusty for not taking down the site. It's really a great place to be, and I am even having a little bit of fun changing the way I write here and what I write about—it really is a community, and that makes all the difference in the world to me.

As for additional photo credits the site needs to fix its glitch that does not let me place photos the way I want to or add those captions in. I am too crabby to deal with it and wouldn't say so if I weren't crabby. The photo with the cat's legs over the hutch is mine, though. That's Cal, our warehouse cat.