I haven’t been doing this lately, but yesterday I just had to take a power nap in the middle of the afternoon. It would have been a longer one, too, if the phone hadn’t rung.

It was a frustrating call from a yellow pages salesman who misrepresented himself. He told me what our company listing was and that there was nothing for me to do and no obligation. Then he put his supervisor on and she (in the accented English I associate with tech support) told me that if I did nothing after the free trial, my advertisement (that I hadn’t agreed to) would be extended for a full year at the low-low price of —

Whoa, Nellie.

I didn’t hear the low-low price, because that’s where I interrupted her. I wanted to make sure I was hearing right, and then I very firmly told her that I didn’t want anything to do with their product. I had to say it several times to get the point across. I think she half-apologized when she finally gave up and let me off the hook.

That was the end of my nap, for sure. I was wide awake, so I got out of the chair and went back to work, fussing and fuming the whole time. No wonder people have ulcers and heart attacks. I think there’s a cause-and-effect relationship that could sink the whole telemarketing business if it could be proven.

Just trying to get to the end of the week, I didn’t need my monitor to give me a hard time first thing this morning. Yet there was Aiden, staring at me from the Desktop and looking ghostly. For a few minutes I stopped thinking and started panicking. I restarted the computer, I unplugged everything, and I tried every button on the bottom of the monitor.

When that didn’t work I got a little smarter and checked the settings. Somehow I was looking at a 4-bit, low-resolution screen. By the time I had reset it to the proper color quality and screen resolution, I was sweating and ready for a shower.

That’s good, because it was time for my morning shower anyway. All this had happened as soon as I got out of bed, which means that I wasn’t fully awake. (Heck, if it’s not at least noon, I’m not fully awake.)

So there would be no easing into my Friday, and I was on edge all day. A little later, I left an acerbic message for the Boss on his answering machine. And believe it or not, I had to hang up on the same telemarketer who called me yesterday. Same accent, same pitch. Same result, except the “no” was a little louder this time. It just wasn’t a fun day.