You know that old saying, no good deed goes unpunished? Yeah, that’s a real thing. The saying is a living breathing thing, the punishment as severe as the deed is good. In other words the severity of punishment you receive for your good deed is consistently equal to the goodness of your deed. From what I can tell and have experienced, it’s not just a saying, it’s the law.

Anyway as you may or may not be aware March 22nd marked the start of Anne Marie’s birthday week. Yes week. This concept is new to me, baptized into it by my wife. It took me a bit to get my mind around it. My next door neighbor, who will go nameless (Whitney), claims there is such a thing as a birthday month. I can’t believe it, I won’t believe it. But I’m usually wrong about these things so…

No matter. The point being, with a birthday week in play there is a plethora of good deeds to be accomplished resulting in a cornucopia of punishment to be doled out for said good deeds.

Don’t laugh. You’re not exempt. Your punishment for the good deed of visiting my blog is having to endure social media’s version of home movies, i.e. the pics of AM’s birthday week in this post.

But as for me, the good deed causing my punishment was an early morning, like 7 am early, to the Kroger to get birthday balloons so we could decorate the kitchen for AM before she woke up. Yeah we could have done it the night before, but let’s face it, that’s just not our style.

Confirmation came from Tracy that she called and was told a worker bee would actually be there to fill said balloons. Cause you know, minimum wage employees never lie to get some crazy person off the phone at 11 pm on a Friday when they won’t be there 7 am the next morning to worry about it.

So with that solid intel, off I go. Out into the wee morning to see this fictitious Kroger Balloon man. Although I get the feeling it would be more likely I’ll find the Ohio Grassman (Ohio version of the Bigfoot).

Hey guess what, no Kroger Balloon man. No man or woman of any type at the Kroger in the 6:54 am time frame, save the produce guy. As luck would have it I happen to know the guy. He says he can fill the balloons. Nice!

Balloons filled and harnessed and floating, I stride confidently to the checkout lane. First in line at 7:10 am Saturday morning, who would have guessed. Annnnd she has no idea what they cost or how to ring them up. She tried everything short of just pointing her little bar code scanner gun directly at the balloons. Not sure I would have held it together had she done that.

I decide to head back to the produce/balloon guy and get some advice. With Balloons in hand, sort of. They were floating above me. I walk the 100+ yards back to the produce section and relay my tale of woe. The dude says “Man she knows how much they are, she has a bar code in the book.”

Ah the book, yes the book. It looked worse than the cookbook binder my little sister gave Tracy as a gag when we got married; no recipes, just take out menus. We still use it 11 years later.

He gives me the packages just in case and I walk back the same 100 yards, in danger of wearing a groove in the floor. It is now 7:30 in the am.

At the register she gets more physical about finding the bar code. In  the midst of thrashing about her work station she notices the two Mylar balloons have bar codes on the stem where the string attaches. She attacks. A tell tale beep is heard and joy covers the land for a brief second.

Whoops. No joy in Mudville. Code came up ERROR. Even worse, I notice the bagger kid looking strangely up at the ceiling some 40 feet away. I ready my self to render first aid and buddy care as I perceive he is about to take a seizure.

Turns out it was me who would need the aid. The lad was merely watching the two Mylar balloons escape from the bundle due to the register lady’s aggression, and float harmlessly but aggressively to the ceiling. Flipping me off the entire way. It is now 7:38 am and I have yet to accomplish anything but watch two balloons float away.

I can stand no more and let out a, “Oh c’mon man, are you freaking kidding me!” This caused some action. The kid ran back to the balloon counter and inflated two more and came back with a way for me to actually buy them. Should have yelled sooner.

Balloons, and reciept, in hand I make it to the Starship Frankerprise (our mini-van) at 8:07 am and begin the mile long journey back to the house. So yeah only 1 hour and 13 minutes to drive 1 mile to the Kroger, get 8 balloons, and drive the mile back. Einstein’s theory of speed of light was not in danger.

Wasn’t all that way. It turned out to be a pretty good week. If you’re not worn out from reading that take a look at the week that was.

I give you AM’s Birthday Week, iPhone camera style.

 

 

In a fit of stupidity I decided to try and make a Minnie Mouse cake…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which drove me back to this…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok enough bragging. Here are some pics of the birthday girl and her week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Daddy Daughter Dance was a great way to end the week. She loved dancing with her daddy and talked about it the whole way home.

The balloons on the ceiling was not a great start. But clearly the week rebounded nicely.

The birthday week bar has now been set.

God help me.