The turkeys were an omen.

Gah, what a day.

My drive to work this morning was perfectly normal, right up until I had to brake for the flock of wild turkeys crossing the road.  That was when my brakes went almost completely out on me.  Fortunately, I didn't hit a turkey.  I drove carefully and slowly the rest of the way to work, and told Mom what had happened.  Oh, Mom and Dad were supposed to be en route to Dallas for Thanksgiving, but they didn't leave on Wednesday because of Mom's work schedule and they didn't leave this morning because Dad didn't feel well.  I will spare my readers a rant on the idiocy of people who do not take antibiotics that have been prescribed for them and who instead prefer to fix dental problems on their own.

At any rate, Mom was home, and she and I talked while she had her second cup of coffee, and then I checked the voice mail while she paid bills.  There was a message from the outside company we use to prepare QDROs (court documents dealing with the division of retirement accounts for divorcing clients) saying that they didn't want the form we'd sent to them for one of our clients, they wanted a different form, which, btw, we'd sent to them in April, at which time they rejected it.  So the first thing I did was call the client and tell him what we now needed.  Next, I tried the local tire & brake shop, and got a busy signal.  So Mom and I started work with a look at the payroll account and then doing a bunch of letters.  When I finally got through to the tire place, they said if I could bring my car in and leave it for the day, they'd try to fix the brakes for me.

With Mom ahead of me in her car, I drove very, very slowly down a main road until we got to the tire place. I dropped off the keys, gave them my information, signed the form and hopped in with Mom to go to the post office and then back to work.  Almost immediately the phone rang, and a semi-hysterical non-client tried to drag us into an estate dispute involving one of our incompetent clients.  I told her Mom was unavailable, took her name and number and wrote up my notes from the call.

Mom then decreed a short break, and we went to the Disney Cruise website to complete our pre-registration.  That's when we discovered that there is no record of transportation from our hotel the day of the cruise to the ship.  Mom was livid.  She sent an e-mail to the travel agent (who still hasn't replied) and then had to pick up all of the assorted paperwork all over the floor.  While she did that, I talked to a client in a divorce case where opposing counsel is ignoring us AND ignoring the judge's office.  Unfortunately, we can't send enforcers to his office to make him return our calls.

Then the phone rang again, and it was one of our clients who is involved with a nasty estate dispute.  Mom did her best to talk to the client and tell her what she needed to do so Mom could do her job, and when that phone call ended, it was time for lunch.  While we were getting lunch ready, the phone rang again and it was the semi-hysterical non-client again.  This time Mom talked to her, then we ate, then she wrote up her notes and I went downstairs to look for some paperwork.

While I was down there the phone rang again, and the tire place told Mom that my car wouldn't be ready today, that they had to replace two brake lines and that it would cost at least $300.

The rest of the day went downhill.