When the kennel manager at the shelter said she wanted her birthday off and asked if I'd work for her, I didn't even think before saying "No problem".
When the shelter director asked for some help with the grand opening celebrations for the dog park, I didn't even think before saying "No problem".
When Avery gave me that "we are going to agility class, right" look, I didn't even think before saying "No problem".
When it occurred to me that all of these things would be happening today, I started to see the problem. The first problem being I had to be at the shelter at 8 am. Since becoming unemployed, I don't generally get up much before 8 am. Even the dogs looked at me with disbelief when I dragged them outside (in the dark) at 7 am.
Get the dogs fed and myself ready for work. No time to prepare something to eat, so breakfast was a Devil Dog. Spend the next four hours running around the shelter. Finally lock the doors at noon with plans of running home, picking up Avery and heading to agility class.
Problem number two cropped up when one of my little volunteers called her mom for a ride home and mom hadn't arrived by noon. There's no way I'm leaving this 14 year old girl standing by herself in front of the shelter; so I had to stick around until mom showed up at 12:15. Pretty sure this was the same volunteer who called last week and wanted to come in early because "my mom wants to go to Bingo so she'll need to drop me off before 8:00" Which begs the question, what kind of freak goes to bingo at 8:00 in the morning? Followed by why do so many people think we're here to babysit their children?
Get home and have just enough time to slice up turkey dogs for training treats and head to Muncie for agility. Problem number three arose. Problem being the Devil Dog had worn off and I'm now starving. I ended up eating half of the turkey dogs before we even got to class. And, of course, ran out of them way before class was over. Not to mention the fact that Avery was so wound up about being crated all morning that she had difficulty focusing on the task at hand - which just gave me another excuse to eat turkey dogs during class.
Class ran late (of course) but we finally made it back to New Castle. My "low gas" light came on right at the town line so I had just enough to get us to the park. Due to the fact that it was 45 degrees out and raining, they decided to wrap things up early. Finally something goes my way!
I got there just in time to help clean up. Well, and to check the quality of the fence before deciding whether to join the park at all. I met the fence guy several times and all I can say is holy crap on a cracker! I know more about putting up a fence than this guy! No way I was going to let huskies loose inside that thing if he didn't get around to securing it.
Finally got home at 4:00 with Avery's leash in one hand and a personal pizza in the other. I'm done for the day! I don't care what anybody asks me for, there will be no more favors for at least six months. And damn, I was only outside for half an hour but I'm still chilled to the bone. I think it's time to consider relocating to Arizona.