Without a doubt yesterday morning was one of the top five most aggravating mornings of my life.

At some point on Sunday my Droid clued into the fact that I have ordered an iPhone and promptly ceased cooperating with me. Initially I thought it was the same glitchiness I’ve been dealing with ever since updating the Android OS because while trying to send a tweet the screen would freeze while I was typing and then my Twitter app would crash. It became obvious, though that typing in general was an issue and neither the physical keyboard nor the onscreen one were functioning properly. I did a reset and that didn’t work and so I went to bed hoping that it would magically fix itself and expecting to call Verizon in the morning.

Well, it didn’t fix itself because electronic devices don’t do that, especially not in my house. So, I called Verizon and after an hour of the tech support rep making my phone perform virtual gymnastics we fixed the typing issue. Except it wouldn’t log into my Google Account. If you’ve ever had a cell phone issue, I’m sure you’re aware that every problem is supposedly fixed with a reset, this started a long sequence of doing just so. I say “long” because apparently there are countless ways to reset my phone. I knew we were heading down a bad road, though because every time the phone booted up and I went to log in and couldn’t the rep got just slightly more baffled. Eventually, he exhausted his database of helpful tips and sent me on my way to Motorola where the heavily accented rep there had me repeat about 65% of what I’d done with Verizon before hitting on the new tricks that finally made my phone believe my password was too correct.

I thought, “My day can only improve from here,” and so I was immediately brought back to reality when I checked the mail and discovered the boxes of cupcakes were still sitting on my porch. The mail was delivered, complete with a carrier pickup notification that didn’t give me any information whatsoever as to why my boxes were not picked up and instead lounging in a late morning sunbeam. I called my post office. The line was busy. I called USPS and maneuvered through their automated system trying to reach a human being while ignoring the message about their “unusually high call volume.” The human being gave me the phone number I just called and assured me they were the ones I needed to speak to. I called again and the phone rang continuously until the line went dead on me. I called USPS once more and got another human being who apologetically reaffirmed the previous human’s statement, but transferred me to her supervisor who accidentally? hung up on me. I spent about 30 seconds having a temper tantrum wherein I nearly threw my newly functioning Droid across the room and then called the post office once again. Someone picked up on the second ring and I nearly died from relief. He very politely listened to my dilemma and assured me that he would send the carrier back out to get my perishable packages.

Meanwhile, I have gotten the mail which included an item from Amazon that I accidentally ordered. I had intended to refuse the package as a means of returning it, but noticed the return address was not Amazon’s even though it was “fulfilled by Amazon.” So, since I’d already spent the better part of my morning with my cell phone pressed against my ear, I called Amazon. The CSR who came on the line wouldn’t even acknowledge my question until she gathered the required name, email, billing address, and order number. After which she finally let me ask about the return and responded by regurgitating Amazon’s return policy word for word. When I emphasized the fact that I just needed to know if I could refuse the package or if I needed a return label to send it directly to Amazon she told me she would send an email detailing how to do a return because clearly her verbal read-through wasn’t enough. I explained again that I am quite familiar with Amazon’s return policy and process, which is why I wanted to know what would happen to this package since the return address wasn’t Amazon’s. She said she would send me an email about returns. I asked to speak to someone else. She told me they would say the same thing and would only send me the email she was going to send. I told her that wasn’t an answer to my question and asked if she would kindly let me speak to someone else. She started to repeat the bit about the email and I cut her off by hanging up. And so I had to call back again and I got another CSR who I immediately apologized to because I was sure to cross the line into “irate customer on the phone” land. I had to repeat myself a few times to this CSR, too, but she did eventually answer my question by stating the item needed to be sent to Amazon not the address on the box. She even created a UPS call tag for my package.

Throughout all of this I am most surprised by Uschi, who showed a new level of concern for me. She followed me around the house as I paced, nudging me in the leg or arm now and then to remind me she was there. When I finally sat down on the sofa she promptly joined me and snuggled up against me. And when I was finally done with my hours of phone calls, she crawled into my lap and was shockingly gentle in her exuberance for attention. As cranky as everything had made me I have to say it was difficult not to thaw a bit from that level of love. It was certainly more attentive than I was the other day when we came home from grocery shopping and I didn’t realize she was still harnessed more than an hour later. She was a good sport about it, though.

In other news, I made more cupcakes yesterday. They were only a slight fiasco in comparison to my usual baking/decorating adventures. I ended up having to do the Tootsie Roll ears three different times. The first batch burned and I put the blame squarely on the microwave which was mysteriously set for an entire minute and thus the taffy globbed into a boiling inferno. The second batch ended up being the perfect size for pug ears. Except, of course, I was making chocolate labs. Also, the design instructions I was following clearly say to use dark chocolate frosting, which I thought was too dark but I’m not above being frugal and I had made dark chocolate frosting the other day as it’s the best to dye black since it requires the least amount of tinting added, which can make things taste funky. Black frosting is required for pretty much every cupcake I am slated to make lately. I only did the two in the middle because I found them unappealingly dark and the ears don’t match as nicely, so the rest are just a more milk chocolate brown a la chocolate buttercream. And now I am very nearly out of semisweet chocolate, which means further baking is on hold until that is rectified. Oh, and if you were wondering, they have orange tongues because apparently while making monsters, my brother also ate all my pink Starbursts.

Anyhoo, today Uschi has her Lyme booster. So, we’ll be taking some chocolate labs to share at the vet’s. If last year was anything to go by, I anticipate these will be very much enjoyed.