I’m pretty sure my horoscope today said something like this…

Before you climb up on your pulpit—and we both know you had your climbing gear ready to go—I am aware that there are truly awful days in everyone’s lives, and the past 24 hours weren’t that. Instead it was the day of death-by-a-thousand-hangnails, papercuts, and missed opportunities.

Actually, it started last night at the opera gala. The invitation had arrived, suggesting a dress code of “evening glamour”.

Digression: I may have remarked a time or two hundred about how unfair it is that women see those words and know they have to go shopping for “foundations” (scary undergarments left over from the Spanish Inquisition), while men see them and know all they have to do is squeeze into that that tux they last wore when Bush was president. (I’ll let you guess which Bush). 

Luckily, by the time the Hub announced the suit still fit, I remembered a gorgeous outfit I got in India last month. I was feeling the evening glamour all the way to Edinburgh and into the loo that I visited the second we got there. I oozed glamour right up to the moment when the fancy shmancy wave-your-hand-to-activate soap dispenser went on the offensive and spurted liquid soap down the front of my evening glamour. I was staring at the glistening, slowly dripping lines of what looked like… um…something else that looks like egg whites… snaking across my stomach when I heard the door to the bathroom open.

The two (legitimately glamourous) older ladies stopped their conversations to stare at the glutenous drips I was sporting. Four eyes met mine in the mirror before one of them said in accents that could have cut crystal, “I’ve found that selzer can work miracles in these cases, dear.” The other lady nodded and they swept into empty toilet stalls.

Of course I saw those ladies everywhere I looked for the remainder of the evening. I can’t tell you much about the speeches or the food because I spent the gala trying to cover as much splotchy glamour as possible with my scarf.

After a few hours of sleep, the dog and I were up at 5 AM to make it to the early ferry. Just as we were leaving, I got a text saying my ferry had been cancelled. I called and was told there was one boat that would probably sail that day, and it would leave in a few hours, but that they could only book us on the one much later that evening. If we wanted to go on the earlier boat, we could try waiting in the standby lane in case there were openings. There should have been plenty of time to make it to the ferry. Except for the truck.

I waited a polite few minutes before trying a discrete tap on my horn. Nothing. I waited ten minutes, before sounding the horn decisively. Still nothing, as I counted the minutes. Fifteen. Twenty. I got out of my car and marched down to the front of our street but didn’t spot anyone. This time I laid on the horn for several antisocial moments. Faces appeared in the windows of surrounding buildings but if I could sit through an entire opera gala with suspicious stains across my dress, I could face anything. I called back to our house and asked the Hub to reconnoiter in hopes of finding the truck driver. Then I called the police. And the phone number on the side of the truck.

Finally, the Hub tracked down the truck driver, several blocks away. He came back and tried to apologize, but I was in hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-about-to-miss-her-boat mode. I told him it was antisocial and unacceptable, that I had reported him to the police and to his company, and—for the very first time in my life—that his apology was not accepted. I told him what I thought of thoughtless morons who block an entire lane full of people, and asked him if he would do that to his mother. I was really working up to full diatribe levels when he hurriedly swung up into the truck and drove off.

The nice police officer called back to say he had also talked to the truck’s owners, who explained they were actually hired by the City of Glasgow. “It’s very difficult to park in your neighborhood,” the officer continued.

“That’s their problem, not mine,” was my less-than-creative response. “They didn’t just wake up this morning and find that the truck-fairies had left them a giant, unparkable vehicle. They could have applied for a permit and had the City block off parking.” I was not nice. I was not friendly. I didn’t feel like being accommodating. I was the bitch who sat through the opera gala with what looked like fresh semen dripping down her front, and who did NOT appreciate missing her boat. “The lack of preparation on their part,” I (shamelessly) misquoted, “Should not cause an emergency on my part.”

I missed the boat, and ended up sitting in the ferry line until mid-afternoon. I must have fallen asleep, because a concerned young man was tapping on my window. “Are you okay? Didn’t you hear the announcement? All sailings for the day were cancelled.”

I looked around and realized mine was the only car left.

“Don’t worry,” I wished I’d said. “I’ve found that selzer can work miracles in these cases. As long as it comes with a bloody great cup of gin.”

I rebooked the ferry for the following day and headed back to Glasgow.

I was just about to head to bed when the message came in.

Last month, I flew across the world to India, where we traveled by every form of transport from trains to planes to human-powered bicycle rickshaw. And not one of those trips was as hard as getting across the 30 miles of sheltered water that separates the mainland from our little Scottish island.