What a load of crap. Today has started with a great amount of suckiness as it is. At 11:48 last night, I gave up and took a sleeping pill. At 4:08AM, I woke up. That’s it. I tried for over an hour to go back to sleep, but that hour is too late to take another sleeping pill. I probably should have taken about 5 or 6 advil, though, because my hip hurts so much that it’s radiating all the way down the front of my thigh and into my knee, and my sciatic nerve is sending pain down the back of the same leg, and if I tilt my hips too far forward or back, the pain shoots upward. It’s a good thing my parents won’t notice or complain about the condition of the house on Thursday, because it’s not going to be immaculate by any stretch of the imagination.

So, anyway, back to the internet. Because I feel so supremely hideous, I’m dreading the idea of being in the car looking around for a pond vacuum, and figure that I’ll check the internet. First, I find a bunch of unrelated sites, but after a while, I land in a discussion forum with brand names and reviews, so I start searching for specific pond vacs. Based on what I found, there are approximately 300 ponds in the UK for every one in the US. Either that, or people in the UK keep theirs cleaner, because nobody in the US sold anything but the $500 ones, or the ones that were universally derided on the discussion forums. So, daughter suggests I search google by language – yes, we’re both writing in English, but the language search specifies country. Or, maybe not. Now my search comes back with a whole different bunch of pond supply places in the UK. Grrr. Well, fine, I have brand names, let’s check eBay. Voila, someone’s selling last year’s model for $60. I don’t know hubby’s account information, so I start a new one for myself. Or try to. I’m supposed to enter the confirmation number from the email they send me. Check email in a separate window. Nothing. Refresh. Nothing. Search spam and trash. Nothing. WTF am I supposed to do with this registration window now? Can’t get the account, can’t get the item, and now I’ve spent over an hour trying to save myself a 45 minute round trip to the pond place – which I still have to make, because nobody has the item I want, and which might be a waste, because the pond place might have only the $500 model. In fact, I could decide to make some phone calls and check around the area to see if any of the other pond, pool, or spa places have anything but the $500 model and the piece o’ crap one, and maybe spend another hour on the phone trying to save myself 45 minutes of driving. Or I could just say the heck with it and hope it forces the fish to just toughen up and deal with it.

First, I’m going to take a huge number of Advil. Then I’m going to call my neighbor’s chiropractor. Depending on when he can see me, I’ll either head out and pick up the xrays from the useless chiropractor on the way, or pop a sleeping pill and get some sleep before I go. And maybe use the internet for what it was intended for – looking at stupid videos and reading jokes. (No, I’ll let someone else search for the porn, even though that’s what it’s for, too. Heh)