Description of my plan followed by hysterical laughter

Getting myself set up for next week when I will be working all day at the polls for the primary election. Go to the office and finish the bulletins. All is ready to print and now that the copier people came out and fixed the copier it should only take about an hour.

While I'm on that side of town, get shopping done to save gas, use coupons, and buy sale items.


Next, go to Aldi; pay for groceries with debit card and get $40 cash back. Take $20 go to Marc's buy multiples of the items on sale;put change in pocket. Go to Dollar General; buy pop that's on sale and milk; use $5 off coupon.

Get gas at cheap stations on my way home.

Then, come home, put everything away get, and back to chore list.

**Actuality**
Should have been an hour of work, but no -- the copy I made at home and sent to myself by email is apparently not compatible with  the version on that computer.  So I had to redo it before I could print.
Instead of an hour it took over 2.

On to shopping: Try to pay for groceries at Aldi at three different registers with three different cashiers -- including the manager -- but my card will not work using debit, using credit, no matter what we try. So I leave my groceries in the buggy at Aldi behind the service desk and drive quickly to the credit union to retrieve money from the ATM machine. However the machine tells me my card is expired (even though it says 5 of 17 and it's still two days until May even begins.) So I drive home and get the cash I had for paying another bill and drive all the way back to Aldi to retrieve my buggy of groceries.

Get gas at $2.27 because I'm now out.  So much for saving gas or getting a good price on it!

Go into Marks -- they're out of the items that I wanted and do not issue rainchecks. I am advised to return Monday (exactly when I didn't want to be out running around!) when their truck comes in and try again.

On to Dollar General -- the sales that I was told about on the pop are not marked so I have to get a manager twice to verify that the price is the sale price even though they have taken the sale signs down already. Good news though because I get the good price but it just takes longer.

Finally home, and most of my day--along with my energy/motivation--is gone.