Today has been one of those weeks.

Have you ever had one of those days? You know the kind, the ones where you think you should have stayed in bed. Well today was mine. As you may know, I have been dealing with a debilitating back condition for more than half of my life. As noted before, this condition pretty much dictates my daily life. A few years back, it became clear that I would need to change my mode of transportation because getting into a compact car was just getting too burdensome for me, my mobility or lack thereof began to rear it's ugly head. I switched to a pick-up truck and the problem got better. We traded up to a big Ford F-150 Crew Cab which meant that we could all ride in comfort and best of all, I could get in & our without the use of a shoehorn or copious amounts of axle grease. As time moved on the good old back condition decided that it needed to assert more control on my life and soon it was becoming harder and harder to manage to get in. The solution came in the form of a two foot aluminum ladder. I could step up on it and easily get into the truck with little effort.

Then came the end... Joyce was involved in a pretty bad accident when a woman in front of her failed to stop in time before hitting a cement mixer being towed by a work crew. Of course, during the split second that she hit the mixer, Joyce was unable to react in time to avoid bringing up the rear. Our truck was totaled and the search began to find a replacement that would be compatible with my condition. We found the answer in a Chevy Van with low running boards that made getting in a breeze. Little did we know that the drivers side running board had a crack int the connection that held it to the van's chassis and soon the board had began to fail. Climbing into the van was becoming more and more a great big pain in the back and something had to change.

I took the van to a shop that installs running boards and agreed to allow the man to put new Diamond Plate boards on. He ordered the boards while I was standing there and we set a time to come in to let him do the install. This morning was the morning that I thought would be the last time that i would have to haul my big butt up into the van... new boards were on the way. gleefully, i gave the man my keys and left with the anticipation that when i returned, shinny new diamond plates would be staring me in the eyes.

Sadly, this is where my sorry tale actually begins. I get a call from Yancy telling me that there is a problem. He said that he took the old ones off and began to install the new ones, when it became obvious that they were not working. The company had sent him running boards designed for a Ford Econoline, not a Chevy Express.

So, here i sit, with a van that is basically an enormous mountain that I am forced to scale anytime that I want to go out. We are waiting to see if the company has the correct boards and then we will have to wait until they get shipped in from Kansas City to put them on.

And to think, I got out of bed for this.