You know I don't like to complain, but ...

No, it's true. I don't like to complain, but sometimes I just have to. It's the best way to expel the bad air.

If I'd known today was going to be like this, I wouldn't have spent the whole weekend sitting around doing nothing. The fact that this was both Monday and the first day of the month should have occurred to me. Maybe there's an app that sends you an alarm when some horrible confluence of events is looming. I usually plan better than this, but today was a perfect storm of Murphy's Law meets Instant Karma. Whatever could go wrong immediately came back to knock me down.

Rather than subject myself (and, if you're still here, you) to an account of every little thing (like the printer repeatedly jamming when I tried to print more than one envelope at a time), let's skip to the highlights.

And (why not?) let's start with the worst thing: I got an audit letter from the workers' compensation carrier. The latest in a long line of auditors plans to be here at 9:00 am on November 12, which seems far enough away until you realize that I have to go through twelve months of time cards to make sure that they all show the same fictitious beginning and ending hours for every worker, during every week.

The hours don't have to be correct. They just have to show something that gets the auditor off the hook, because they really don't like reporting clients. I've been told this by the last two work comp auditors, so I'll be ready for the new guy. I should have been writing phony times on time cards week by week, but as you know, I don't do anything now that can be put off until later. Later tends to creep up at the least opportune moment.

So did I spend the whole day crafting believable time cards for the auditor? No, I did not, because I spent the whole day working on real time cards for the Kennel, which has become even more burdensome than the construction company's payroll. That's because the construction company has so little work lately that all its employees are working at the Kennel, sweeping out cages and the like. So: more people working fewer hours. That actually makes it harder, not easier.

Then, after spending the day doing Kennel payroll, I spent the evening and on into the night paying the weekly bills for both companies. I didn't eat lunch until after 4:00 pm. I didn't get a chance to watch General Hospital. I could barely pay attention to the Giants-Dodgers game. The predictable tedium that I so enjoy about my life was taken away by things I hate doing. It almost makes me think I'm doing something wrong.

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But, as you know, I always get past bad days like this. I feel better already, just having expelled a little bad air.