The Milk Run:
Five days of trying to coordinate the time and energy, bus ran early and missed us, half an hour walking to keep the little one warm waiting for the next bus, reaching there at dusk with dark coming on fast, temper tantrum because with ten minutes to get in stock up and get back to the bus stop there's no time to play games, and I'm at check-out doing double-damage control between keeping my very small child out of the candy on one side and explaining the need to have the milk and cream repacked carefully all into the single insulated bag I'd handed over instead of spread out into pay-for bags when the cashiers call over the store manager to be the one to explain to me that their system for processing food assistance is down and they have no way to take my payment-
-at which point he wrote off our entire week's worth of milk and cream and wished me happy new year.
