"Show Us Your Life" - A Kelly's Korner Carnival

It was suggested that I should participate in the “Show Us Your Life” blog carnival ... it was started by Kelly and you can check out her blog if you click HERE. The idea is to blog out the schedule for your typical day ... I’m not quite sure that anyone would actually be interested in this, but maybe ... anyway, here goes.


My day starts at 5am, I get up, pour a bowl of Raisin Bran and eat it while checking facebook and my e-mail. By 5:30 I’m stretching my back out (a daily requirement since herniating 2 discs and being diagnosed with spinal stenosis) and at 5:45 I get into the shower, shaved and dressed by 6:15 I head out to work. And that’s when the fun begins. Every morning my friend Carlo gets to work before I do, and every day he complains that I am late and that he doesn’t know why he got out of bed so early. “Denny,” he’ll say, “if I knew you were going to be so late I would have gone and had breakfast.” I laugh, but I don’t think he’s kidding. We open the store (money counted, coffee made, lights on, doors open, etc) by 7:30 my boss will find the one thing I didn’t get done the day before and want to know how it is possible that couldn’t do whatever it is the previous day. I will apologize. Once he’s gone Carlo will mock him, “Denny, how come you can’t do your job?” By 8 one of the other guys will come to complain that he didn’t get paid properly the previous day which will result in the one millionth explanation of how their pay system works, "Denny, why can't you pay me right?" while all this is going on we are taking in customers and getting their cars fixed/maintained/tires replaced, by 8:30 something will go terribly wrong. Some days tires are sold that we don’t have, some days parts are delivered late, some days parts are not delivered "Denny, where are my parts?", some days someone forgets to order a part, some days someone forgets to tell me that a car has arrived, some days we brake something ... and I deal with that. Basically between 7am and 6pm I am involved with the servicing of 50 cars/trucks/SUVs, (talking to technicians, talking to customers, talking to sales guys, ordering parts, figuring out what needs to be done when) at some point during the day the sales guys will complain to me about each other, they will complain about the technicians, the technicians will complain about each other, and they will complain about the sales guys ... I always agree with them and at some point EVERYONE will come to me to complain about Carlo (because he delights in aggravating anyone he can), and I will agree with them then too. Every day I am amazed at how much work the guys can do ... they really are incredible and I’m lucky to work with them.

By 6pm (if nothing goes wrong late in the day) I will finish up paying the bills for the parts we ordered, let the late guy know what’s going on in the shop and head home. Once home, my wife Angela and I will do dinner/bath/bed with my three beautiful daughters ... who will each find 5 different reasons to get out of bed (potty, more hugs, more kisses, “I need a glass of water”, etc) and then we’ll clean up the house. If I’m lucky enough to not have a project going on in the house I’ll either read or watch TV while Angela blogs (link HERE)/facebooks/reads e-mail ... unless the Bachelor is on, then we switch and I use the computer while she watches TV. By 11:30 or 12 we’re in bed and it all starts up again 5 hours later. Some where in all that I watch Philip DeFranco on youtube (he is really funny, link HERE), write my own blog and I think I even have some friends I keep in touch with.

So that’s pretty much a day in the life ...