Hay, now . . .

So I'm the designated shopper for the school that I work at which is great because it combines two of my favorite things: shopping with someone else's money and getting paid for it. It's a pretty sweet deal.
Whenever one of the teachers needs something from the store, she submits a purchase request and every other Monday I buy the approved items.
Last week one of the teachers requested a bale of straw.
"Okay," I thought, "that should be easy enough."

Right.

First comes the problem of where to buy a bale of straw in the middle of a semi-big city. Called around. Struck out at Wal-Mart, Dan's, and Smith's.
Finally I got lucky with Albertson'sIt'sYourStore.
So I head to Albertson'sIt'sYourStore thinking this is going to take 15 minutes and I'll be back at my desk in no time.
Well, was I in for a treat.
I went up to the customer "service" counter (is that how to do sarcasm online?) and the lady had no idea what I was talking about. Apparently I threw her off when I referred to it as a "bale of straw" rather than a "straw bale."
After I paid for the "straw bale" I asked where the bales were located so I could put one into my SUV and be on my way.
"They're all out front."
"You mean the ones covered in pumpkins?"
"Yeah."
"But they're all covered in pumpkins," I said.
"Well, you can take the pumpkins off," was her helpful reply.
By the way, I am wearing a skirt and heels.

So there I am, in my heels, lugging pumpkins off a huge straw bale. I chose the bale based on the least amount of pumpkins I had to move, but I swear I still moved about 12 dirty, heavy pumpkins.

Then came the fun part of actually getting this straw back to school. I heave it into the back of my SUV and, in the process, completely cover myself and my cargo area with straw.

I never knew how heavy straw is.

Back at school, I take the straw out of my car and leave it in the parking lot while I jog inside.
I grab a large garbage bag out of the custodial closet and head back to the parking lot, thinking that I can put the straw inside and avoid covering my clothes with straw again.
Unfortunately, a bale of straw is bigger than a garbage bag.

After much heaving and huffing, I carry that stupid straw up to the building, leave it outside the classroom of the teacher who requested it, and go back to my office where my boss laughs hysterically when she sees my appearance and hears the story of how it all came to be.

Oh, yeah. And I think I'm allergic to straw because I now have a reddish, itchy rash on my arms and hands.

So, I think I'm going to go home now, in my car that smells like a barn, and take a bubble bath.