MS KMA.

When I was a kid, the schools were closed on Election Day. They were closed here yesterday. Unfortunately, unlike when I was a kid, I didn’t have the day off, and it was frustrating.

I have three big projects due at the end of the week, and one of them is particularly stressful. It’s for a prestigious publisher, and I did not do my best work for them last time. I may have been sick that week. But that’s not their problem. I got called out for it, and they didn’t send me work for months. I thought I had been moved to the naughty freelancer pile. 

After a nine-month freeze-out I was offered a shot at redemption. I already had a pile of work, but I was determined to restore my reputation. Pride? Certainly. Hubris? Well... Whatever it was, my deadlines turned into a title of a popular movie: Everything Everywhere All at Once.

And then Election Day fell. Which was fine, but I had to go to the polls twice (once to take my wife, because it was unclear that she knew the Secret Backroads Shortcut, and by the way there are two polling places closer to our house than the one to which we have been assigned). Leading up to the second trip, Microsoft decided it was the perfect day to update the laptop.

It is like a pesty salesman. 

Let's do the upgrade now.

I'm busy. Later.

It'd be much better to get this done right away.

Leave me alone.

How about now?

FINE Let's schedule it for tonight.

I set up the schedule to restart at nine o'clock in the evening. Around four thirty, it was time to take the Mrs, to the polls, and Izzy the Baby Dog as well since his attachment has gotten fierce since we lost Tralfaz and we haven't started alone-training again because he has been getting antibiotics and eye drops and eye ointment for blepharitis and conjunctivitis these last two weeks and don't even ask. So we loaded up the truck and we drove past two polling places to the stupid one we have to go to. 

When we got back about 5:30, I found out that Microsoft had apparently decided that it was just going to go ahead without me, since I'd been away from the computer and had probably knocked off for the day. Why wait until nine? I swear, as I woke the screen it asked, should we start now or reschedule? As I reached for the mousepad to stop it, it plunged into update world. OK! Silence is acceptance! Let's go!

Never change, Microsoft.

Eventually I got back to work, but of course I couldn't get as much done as I wanted after all that. Plus, I was hardly in a proper frame of mind. You know what it's like -- you've already gone way past frazzled and are edging up to psychotic when that last thing happens to make you Hulk out. Like, you finally get the dishes in the dishwasher and turn it on, thinking you won't be late for work if the traffic isn't as bad as usual, and then:

I'm not saying it's a suitable time to go William "D-Fens" Foster, but you know you'd start with the dishwasher and somewhere along the line take out the laptop as well. Well, I know I would under those circumstances.