Boxes, Belts, and Birthdays

Oh my brothers, your humble narrator was forced to endure some hardship yesterday. It all started when I found a note on my door. It said that I had a package to pick up at the post office. This was good because I was expecting my zen to be in at any time. I go up to the post office just before they close. I hand the guy my ticket and he goes back to look for my box. When he comes back he's got this funny look on his face. I look down at the box, and it's got one whole side of it opened up. He was shaking it to show me that there was nothing inside the box. I felt like I wanted to go postal. They said that the package opened up somewhere between the Canadian border and Gladstone (it was shipped from Toronto), and the contents were 'lost'. So, some lucky (evil) postal employee is walking around with the third zen I've bought in the last month. The good news is that the shipper insured the package, and I should be able to get a full refund through paypal. The freaking idiot didn't even put tape on the side of the box that 'came open'. Above are pictures of the offending box. Aggrivating.

As I was leaving the post office in disgust thinking 'why did god have to sh*t in my cheerios again today', I was confronted with a more immediate problem. I was driving home and I noticed that the A/C wasn't working. At the same time I noticed that the battery light was on. I knew immediately that the serpentine belt had either come loose or had broke. When I got home I pulled the broken belt out and called my dad to give me a ride to the parts store. He took me up there, we got the belt, got back and tried to put it on. Because the other one was broken it took us a half hour to try putting it on the wrong way before we figured out the right way. It still took another 15 minutes to do. Here's a picture of the offending belt.

As I was getting dirty in the parking lot changing my belt, our tennis team was practicing. I needed to be there because I need to get some hits in before the tournament match tomorrow. Needless to say I missed the practice. Our coach hooked me up with a guy to hit with tonight, but that brought on another problem. My granddad (my only surviving grandparent) is having a birthday dinner tonight at 6:30 and I'm supposed to hit with this guy at 7:00. I haven't been able to get a hold of this guy to try to push it back. Hopefully I can. Whoever out there is wishing me bad luck, I wish they'd stop.