When Irony Is a Good Thing!

So, today I was all set to start out delivering the Avon orders I got from my customers. It was a nice day -sunny, bright and yes, even pretty darned warm too by the time I got moving and left the house. A perfect day, really, to try to find people at home to present their order, collect -hopefully get a new order in return too on the next campaign book. Because I used to be pretty darned good at multi-tasking, I figured I could use my time today to do more than just deliver Avon and try to get re-orders, ya know. I just happened to have a folder containing about 10-15 posters done up that needed to be put on the cluster mailboxes around the neighborhood, some too up at the local grocery store and a few other places that would be within my reach to tack up the posters. (Posters being a little form of advertisement for the Fall Bazaar we ladies from our church group are planning to have on November 23rd.) So, I loaded up the car and headed off. First stop was at the Cluster boxes where I pick up my own mail and I was a little worried if the stuff I had brought with me to use to tack these posters up was going to work and hold them up okay. I had hunted in my various hiding places for a little ziplock bag I knew I had somewhere here containing thumbtacks to use to "tack" these posters up to the wood posts around the mailboxes but all to no avail as apparently I had found an ideal place to hide those things as I couldn't find any thumbtacks. So, using my good old fashioned Yankee ingenuity, ya know, I decided I would take a bag of the little needle thing-a-ma-jigs that one would use to prick your finger for a diabetic blood sugar test. Heck, they are every bit as sharp as a thumbtack so why wouldn't -or couldn't -that work just as well -do the job for me, ya know. And, I was really happy when I was able to get a poster up at the local cluster box and it appeared that my makeshift thumbtacks would work just fine and dandy. So, on to the next set of cluster boxes I went. It was up at that place in the western end of town where my problem of the day was to begin. After getting another poster tacked up, I hopped back in my car and when I closed the door, I heard a familiar noise and not a welcome one, at that. My car sometimes has had little fits, for lack of a better term there, when you close the door on the driver's side and it won't latch and it makes a hell of a loud banging sound that alerts me that I can't move from where I'm parked because my door won't shut, won't latch properly. So I get out and fiddle around a bit, trying to get the latch to release so it will then "catch" if I try to shut it again. Talk about a pain in the dupa job, that is one right there, for sure. After a little fiddling around, I did get the door to latch but then, it developed another problem for me -one I'd never experienced before -as it not only latched but locked and wouldn't release from being locked then. So there I was, the hot autumn sunshine beating down on me -as I sat there with my long-sleeved turtleneck on under my preppy-like crewneck sweater with my blue/purple plaid wool blazer on over top of those two other items and man, it was getting right hot in my car from those layers with that sun shining so darned brightly. And I had the car -including the front seat -loaded with boxes of Avon orders so I couldn't even get out by crawling (or trying to crawl) across the front seat to open the passengers' side door! I really have no clue what I did that finally got the latch to release but anyway, I was able again to get out and try to mess with the latch to get it operating okay. And, eventually, yes -I did get it to latch and off I went then up to that third set of cluster boxes on top of the hill here in town -on the south side of the village. I got my poster up and hopped back into the car to continue on my merry way, only to have the darned latch act up on me all over again but this time, I couldn't even see the latch hook thing in the door panel to try to work on it to get it loose! I happened to think then about Kate's brother, Shane, who was down at my house visiting his sister and his niece (sweet little adorable Lola Rae, ya know) so I called down to the house to ask Kate if Shane was still there and she said that yes, he was. So then I directed her to look on top of the china cabinet to see if there was a white spray can up there that contains some kind of lubricant stuff that my son had told me a while back to get and use on the latch to keep it working okay, moving in and out, up and down, etc., the way it was supposed to be operating but wasn't. Anyway, Kate confirmed that my can of this stuff was indeed there so I told her to give it to Shane and tell him to hop on his ATV and run it up the hill to where my poor little car was parked while I was trying, desperately, to get the latch to open up and work. By the time he arrived with that can of Lithium stuff, I had found the other can of the stuff that I had hidden under the seat in the car and had sprayed a healthy dose of that stuff on to the door's latch. However, another little problem here was that the screwdriver I thought I had under my car seat was not to be found and so, I asked Shane if he might happen to have a screwdriver in his backpack he had with him. Lo and behold, he did have one and he started to try to use that to get the latch to work. No luck with the Lithium spray or with him and his screwdriver either! So there I am -about a mile from my house with a car loaded to the gills with Avon orders and no way to get the darned door to close and latch so I could get moving and get my stuff done then. And, I was trying to figure out how the heck to get someone there who knows something about these things and could get the thing working for me when it dawned on me that I just happened to have, in a side pocket of my Avon demo bag, a business card for a good friend who just so happens to have a garage and junkyard about 3 miles from where my car was sitting! Now, naturally, because my Avon demo bag is generally pretty full with demonstrator (i.e. new products, you know) to show my customers, it isn't in the best form though for being organized so it took me what felt like was forever before I finally found one of the business cards I had asked that garage owner and mechanic to give to me a couple weeks earlier. Now, if you'd seen the look on his face back then when I asked him to give me some of those business cards -featuring the name and address of his garage and also, his cell phone number as well as his home phone number, it was more than obvious that he thought I was a bit wacky for wanting some of his business cards to carry with me. But,as I had told him then, frequently in the course of conversations with my customers, people talk about things with their cars that the should get worked on or need to get their car inspected or whatever but they don't know who to take the car to who would be a trustworthy mechanic, etc., so when that happens then, I had told him I could then give one of his business cards out and help keep his operations running. Little did I think though when I had him give me a couple of cards that I would be the person needing to use it to call him and have him come and bail me out of my little predicament! But anyway, that's how it happened that I was able then to call him and he apparently wasn't really wrapped up in some repair job at that time as he said he would be right down to see what was needed to get the door to close and latch shut again! He checked the door out and determined then that the latch was shot. Toast, if you will! And he would have to take a part of the door apart to fix the problem by installing a new latch in there! And so, that's how his wife happened to be the one then to drive me to my house while her husband gerry-rigged the door up to be able to drive my car out to his shop and put a new latch on my car's door! And two hours later, he returned with my car which now had a working door latch on the driver's side and I was then back in business. Except for the fact that I had to reschedule meeting up with my older daughter to deliver several Avon orders she had taken for me at the hospital where she works as by the time the car was fixed it was a little past 6 p.m. and that made driving the thirty some miles to where I was supposed to meet her today a little out of the question then so I had to reschedule that delivery then to another day. Hopefully, tomorrow -after I have a delightful lunch engagement with several friends of mine from high school, I will then be able to meet my daughter to present her with the orders so she can get them delivered there at her workplace. And, this week is going to be a rough one to make my deliveries too because I have several time slots already filled that will use up way more time than I really have available to do my Avon stuff in a relatively relaxed mode, you see. Tomorrow, there the lunch thing, then down the road thirty miles to meet up with my daughter and drop off the orders she will take care of for me. Thursday afternoon, I have a doctor's appointment -a regular scheduled check-up so that's going to use up at least 2-3 hours of my very valuable time then. And Friday, I have to drive to Milroy to meet younger daughter, Mandy and the grandkids there so I can do a "drop and hook" (to use trucker's vernacular there) and bring Maya and Kurt up here to spend the weekend with Gram! Actually, it's a dual purpose "drop and hook" as Mandy informed me that she will not only be trading with me to take the kids for the weekend but she will also be taking my car to make her return trip back to Middletown and I will get to drive her car up home here because her ex-husband then is supposed to take her car then on Saturday and put new tires on it for her! And, on Saturday, I'll be hard pressed too if I can manage to get at least 1 order delivered then as I had planned to take the kids into Philipsburg to a special event that will be happening there Saturday Afternoon. It's a fund raiser called a "Ghost Walk" in which people will escort visitors around the town of Philipsburg to show where some businesses used to exist there in days that to my grandkids will seem to be truly something that dates back to what they consider to be the dark ages -a long, long time ago, ya know! So wish me well in my endeavors to get my orders delivered and that I'm also -hopefully -able to pick up a whole lot of new orders too since this campaign and I believe only two more will be the last orders I will be able to take that will guarantee delivery by Christmas! Yes, of course, I am in the throes of what is the best season, sales wise, of the year as far as any and all self-respecting Avon Reps will tell you! So please, say a couple prayers for me and my upcoming work and travels that there is nothing else coming my way -ironic or not -that will impede me in my job getting done! Just another day in the life of an Avon Sales Rep during the Christmas "rush" ya know!