Every day is a new opportunity for failure.

"Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee" Stephanie Piro

I am a magnet for things just plain old not working out.

Other people can go through day to day life without really doing anything spectacular, and still not having anything disastrous go on either.

I can usually only manage to accomplish the former.

Take this past Sunday for example.

All I really wanted was a simple cup of coffee.

I couldn't make it at home, as the last time I bought coffee I mistakenly got some French Vanilla crap.

Instant coffee is pretty bad on it's own, but flavoured instant coffee tastes like liquified rubber.

Old rubber.

Like the kind that is on a boot that you let your dog chew.

And then the dog buries it in the back yard and you grow old and get put in a home, and a new family moves in and THEIR dog digs up the old boot that has been rotting underground for thirty years and starts chewing on it.

Take that taste and liquify it.

You will have a gold mine if you happen to be in the dog treat flavour business.

But if you are me, all you have is a rubber boot tasting coffee.

So I dump it out and head to town for groceries.

Last week I convinced my Stronger Half to go for ice-cream after shopping.

This week we were too damn early and the Dairy Treat wasn't open.

( Why??!! Why don't they open until 1pm??!! Am I the only person in the world that craves a Reses Pieces Flurry at 10 am??)

On the way out of town I have a brilliant idea to get SH to stop for Circle K Coffee.

I'm addicted to their Cafe Mochas.

Nobody else that I know actually likes Circle K Coffee.

I generally either have to trick people into going by asking them out for coffee, sort of insinuating I mean for Tim's or perhaps The Beandock, and then just pulling into Circle K.

Or I have to bribe them.

Since "SH" could also usually stand for "Smarter Half" I knew trickery was out of the question.

Thankfully I had a stock pile of Irving Gas coupons with me.

And my coffee deprived mind decided they were worth sacrificing for such a bribe.

I had to work quickly as our town is only twice the size of a postage stamp and we were already halfway to the gas stations.

It took almost three blocks to convince him to use the coupons.

I am generally the beneficiary of this Sobeys/Irving marketing scam because I make next to nothing, and drive two hours a day to do so. Therefor it is deemed that I deserve 3 cents off my gas purchases.

It's true, I do need them. But in the heat of the moment, like a genuine crack addict, I decided I needed my Cafe Mocha more.

So knowing the the quickest way to SH's heart is through his wallet, I explained how the coupons were more valuable the more liters you pump. His tank is bigger, so he should be using them.

Even as the words were coming out of my mouth I knew I was potentially giving up every future gas coupon that came into our possession.

Just to ensure he understood that this offer was a one time only deal, I managed to coyly slip in the real reason for going to Irving

" ...plus maybe I could like get a coffee or something"

Slick I know.

He's not generally easily persuaded, so he must just really love me.

Or perhaps he was just didn't like the way I was white knuckling it as we neared closer and closer.

At any rate, he pulled into Irving and I made a bee-line for the coffee machines.

Here I found the other four people in the world that like Circle K coffee. They all took their sweet time getting theirs.

When It was my turn I pressed my magic sequence of buttons

"Columbian" "CafeMocha" "16oz" "Start"

and waited for my caffeinated chalky goodness to fill my cup.

And it almost did.

Except the Chocolate was empty in the machine. Which meant I had to find someone to change it.

I corner a lost looking blonde girl with a Circle K Shirt on and tell her I need more chocolate.

She looks at me like I have three heads.

I explain to her that the cup didn't fill up and the usually means that the machine is out of chocolate.

SH at this point has finished filling both his truck with gas, and his own coffee cup and is waiting for me to go.

Blondie is trying to explain to me that there are different cup sizes and I must have pressed the 12 oz.

I've already thrown my bad coffee out, so I can't make her taste it, so I run it through the machine again.

She walks away, apparently thinking that she has satisfied a customer.

I wrangle her back over, and explain again that the machine is out of chocolate, as SH pays for the gas and coffees.

She thinks I'm a new customer, and yet again tells me that I've pressed 12oz, and put in a 16oz cup.

At which point I inform her in my best "get your stoner ass in gear" voice, that I purchase a coffee every single day and press the same buttons every single time, which makes me infinitely more qualified than her in the goings on of the coffee machine.

And this machine is most definitely out of Chocolate.

She then admits that she can't find the key. As she admits this she walks over to the storage counter and finds the key right where it probably always is.

She then turns around and says "I think we're out of Chocolate for the machines"

What I should have done was taken the key from her, opened the stupid cupboard door, found the new chocolate and replaced it in the machine.

Instead, I drop kicked her.

Well no I didn't. I wanted to, but without my caffeine/crack-cociane-chocolate high, I really didn't have the energy.

So I just gave up, and I walked out after twenty minutes of trying without my coffee.

Like I said, I seem to excel at getting into situations where things screw up. Nobody dies, nothing is destroyed, yet still my day is slightly crappier than if I hadn't of tried to do anything at all.

Not only did I give up my gas coupons and not get a coffee for it, but I then had to drive home to the sound of SH contentedly sipping HIS coffee, that he never wanted in the first place.