The Mean Reds

One of my all time favorite movies is Breakfast at Tiffany's.
When I have a bad day, this scene always seems to pop into my head:

Holly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The "mean reds?" You mean, like the blues?
Holly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat or it's been raining too long. You're just sad, that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid, and you don't know what you're afraid of. Don't you ever get that feeling?

Today was one of those days.

I was very apprehensive about starting school today. Although I am only taking 12 credit hours, I am taking senior level classes, so they aren't just going to be a breeze.
I tried to stay as positive as possible all last night & in to today.
Since I will [hopefully] have a little more free time, I decided to try to get a job.
I heard the local dry cleaners was hiring, so I psyched myself up all weekend about getting up early this morning, getting dressed nicely, and going to apply for the job.
Except, when I got there, they told me they didn't have applications, and they were just having people write their names and numbers down on a sheet of paper, and they would call them later.
UMMM...SERIOUSLY?!

Who does that?
I was immediately let down.
I decided to go home and take a nap.....
only to have Aaron call me [from school] and tell me that he lost his car keys & I needed to come pick him up/bring the spare.
Great.

My first [and only] class today was on the complete other side of campus from where I had to park. I usually wouldn't be too upset by this, except for the fact that my University loves to inconvenience it's students, and has decided to do construction in the CENTER of campus, causing the construction company to put fences up alllll through the middle. Instead of just walking across campus to get from my car to said building, I had to walk COMPLETELY around. I know, I should just shut up. I couldn't help it though. I was already in a terrible mood, and this made it worse.

I thought 'at least when I get home, I'll get some peace.'
Only to find Aaron on the phone with the VA [veterans affairs].
I've mentioned this before, but for you new comers, I'll touch on it again.

Aaron is in the National Guard. He is also enrolled in ROTC through the University.
Because of this, he not only gets paid each month when he goes to drill, but he also gets his tuition, books, and he's supposed to get a stipend every month.
Well, the University 'forgot' to send in his paperwork to the VA last semester. We found this out in October, after he was supposed to be getting paid starting in August. They told him it would take 6-8 weeks to process those papers once the school finally sent them to the VA. Which meant that Aaron wouldn't get paid until December.
When he hadn't heard anything by the second week of December, he began calling them several times a day, only to be put on hold for 30+ minutes. He never got to speak to a representative. After a few days of this, they went on Christmas Holiday.
So, why am I bringing this up now?
Because today, he finally got ahold of them.
And guess what.........
His paperwork was still sitting on someone's desk....UNPROCESSED.
They told him it would take two weeks for them to process it, and then he should be getting paid.
As happy as I am that we finally know he is going to be getting paid [aka we can finally pay off the credit card].....that is money he should have been getting for FIVE months, money that if we WERE getting, we wouldn't have had to use the credit card.]
Isn't that ridiculous? I'm so glad he has a second job, because we would NOT have made it [financially] if we left it up to the school and the VA to do their job.

Here's to hoping that tomorrow is a better day.