So, after slamming my combination Blackberry-cell phone in the car door, losing my digital camera (as described here), paying the hotel shuttle driver $20 to take me to the Thrifty office only to realize that I still had the camera after returning the rental Taurus, and getting slapped with a bill for $40 on two personal calls from my hotel room phone, I landed at National Airport yesterday afternoon determined to make a new start of it.

Nothing peps me up like cold coffee treats. So I saddled up to the Starbucks counter outside baggage claim and ordered a tall light coffee frappuccino. And at this point, the powers above decided that she just wasn't done having fun with me yet.

The "barista," and I use that term loosely, rang up my drink at $3.09, $3.37 with tax. I'm sorry, I said, but I ordered a coffee frappuccino. And the price for one of those is $2.69 plus tax.

"No, you ordered a mocha frappuccino! That is the price of a mocha frappuccino!"

I replied, calmy, "of course I didn't." I tried reason, "I don't even like chocolate." I continued, "And even if I had, a tall mocha frappuccino is $3.69. You've charged me $3.09 -- that's not the price for either drink."

"Okay, I charged you too much. Here," she said, digging into the tip jar, "here is the difference. Seven cents. A tall coffee frappuccino is $2.69, but it's $3.30 with tax."

At this point, fire began creeping up the back of my neck. "You mean to tell me that
the tax on a $2.69 mocha frappuccino is somehow 60 cents, while the tax on this mythical, far more expensive $3.09 drink is only 28 cents?!"

She dug into her pocket, extracted a dollar, and threw it upon the counter. "I have a line!" A turned around, and several folks had lined up behind me. "Take the dollar!"

I threw my hands up in the air. "I don't want your money -- I want to pay for the drink that I ordered!"

"Well, you shouldn't have ordered the mocha and then changed your mind!"

A man standing behind me in line leaned over my shoulder and thought he might be helpful. "Maybe she doesn't know how to process a refund." Thanks, buddy.

"I don't want a refund," I muttered, "I just want her to stop lying," and walked off.

With that, I retrieved the car from the parking garage and began driving to pick Jane up from BWI, the airport in Baltimore. As I drove, I sipped my frappucino, listened to my Lauryn Hill remix CD, and tried to compose myself a bit.

I was starting to feel a bit better. But the fun wasn't over yet. Suddenly, "thump, thump, thump." The car started listing to the right. I pulled to the side of the highway to find that the back left tire of my car had a golf ball-sized hole in it.

All I could do was laugh. I laughed and laughed and laughed. It was all I could do. Finally, I resolved to take the easy road and call someone to change the tire for me. And then I remembered that I have no cell phone. And thus, no way to tell Jane that I'd be late picking her up. I ended up jacking up the car and putting on the spare tire in the shoulder of Route 95 in 90+ degree heat, as traffic sped by just feet from my head.

So, if you're keeping track, in one 72 hour period that's a phone smashed, camera lost, tire blown, and many hundreds of dollars in associated costs down the drain.

Ha. I musta really ticked somebody off up there.