Excuse number twenty-seven as to why I’m writing this Tuesday morning instead of having it done earlier: Yesterday was the worst day I’ve had in a long time. I woke up with a headache, but I still went to work and tried to get stuff done.

First thing, though, I had to stop by the Registry of Motor Vehicles to renew my automobile registration. My pastor Saturday night at music practice dropped off his son, our drummer, and happened to notice the out-of-date sticker on the car. It was five months overdue, in fact. Don’t ask me to explain how I forgot. All I know is that this is a very serious offense in Massachusetts, and I was lucky I was not caught, what with driving around an unregistered car and endangering all the other drivers with my recklessness like that.

So first thing, my plan was, M. would drive me to the registry, and then as soon as it opened at 8:30, I’d be there to get in and out as fast as possible. Then I overslept, and the girls missed the bus for school, so M. had to drive them in, which set us back, not that it mattered much because I was still getting dressed. And I had a headache. I felt like my head was going to explode. So I popped a few dozen Ibuprofen, and went downstairs to the office to check the waiting times at the RMV.

At 8:30, there was a 5-minute wait. By 9:00, it was a half-hour. And I was not getting to work on time. So M. drove me to the registry. I walked ahead of M., who was in the middle of a phone call on her cell, and went up to the woman at the information desk, who was scowling at me—I just knew it—behind her blank stare.

Despite the painful throbbing in my head, I smiled and said, “Hi! I need to renew my registration.”

Silently, she pushed a button, and a slip of paper came sliding out of a mini-printer on the desk. She ripped it off and set it on the desk for me to take.

“Thank you.” I smiled, took the slip and walked to the waiting area. I noticed that the “estimated wait” printed on the slip was only 5 minutes. Cool. I guessed the day was not going to be so bad after all.

M. caught up to me and said, “I think you have to go over there first,” and pointed at the information desk.

“Already taken care of.”

“Oh! That was fast.”

I lowered my voice. “Well, it saves a lot of time when you don’t stop even long enough to say hello.” I don’t know why I lowered my voice. The woman behind the desk certainly didn’t need me to lower my voice or deserve it.

M. went to Dunkies to get us coffee, and I took care of the registration. And I went home, tried to stick the sticker on in the rain, and after much trouble finally succeeded. I made it to work but whenever I concentrated on the document I was writing, my eyes felt like they were going to pop out. The only way I could get rid of my headache was to hold my head a certain way, and then I just wanted to sleep.

I took a long lunch, went home, and plopped myself in front of the TV. I put in Gilmore Girls season 5, disc 4. The next episode for me to watch was episode 14, “Say Something,” the one right after Emily and Richard’s wedding, the one with the breakup, the one where she cries. That episode always makes me cry, too, and I feel like a teenager again. You know that feeling when you have a crush on someone, and you just ache for them, and there’s no good reason for it. We say it’s hormones, but that doesn’t make the feeling any less real.

I didn’t want to go back to work, but I knew I had to. And actually, I felt a little better. Maybe a few tears loosened up my sinuses or something. Unfortunately, feeling better didn’t last too long. I did finish up the document I was working on. But I almost begged M. to make me pick up the girls after school. Having to pick up the girls is a great excuse for leaving work early and making up the time the next day.

To be continued, with part 2.