Sometimes you just have one of those days. You know, where it feels like you're stuck under a dark cloud? Eventually it'll go away but right now it's completely obliterating any bright spots and you lose all perspective. I've kind of felt this way for a couple of months. The concern over my parents' steady decline, constant, EXPEN$IVE car problems, issues at work (somebody didn't enter our vacation time properly for last year so even though our managers authorized all vacation requests, they're now saying we took extra days off and have to take it out of this years vacation. bah.), I'm sick, the weather sucks, the drivers are worse, I can't get out of the city but even if I could, I don't have anyone to go with....erm, okay this is pathetic. I'll add 'bad attitude' to that list....

Anyway, it all kind of piled up and hit me today. And I could boil my life down to 4 words - sleep, eat, work, gym. I was hoping a good workout would boost me up. I ran...boring...rode the bike....yawn...glided nowhere on the eliptical...sooooo tedious....

After I hit the sauna and shower, I went outside where it was minus 20 and found the roads (and my car) snow-covered. Defeated, I walked over to Starbucks. I thought a berry chai might give me a lift before I headed home to my Eleanor Rigby life. I'm ordering my drink, pulling out my wallet and running the speech in my head that says I'm ridiculous for spending $3.40 on a beverage just because it says Starbuck's on the logo when the girl behind the counter says, "Oh, you can put your wallet away. Someone came in earlier and covered all the drinks for tonight!"

I was like "What?"

She said, "That's right. free".

I said, "You mean like a customer came in and said, "Good evening barristas, bevvies on me and money's no object!"??
She said, "Yeah, that's pretty much how it happened."

Wow. Nameless, faceless Starbuck's person, you made my day!