It’s almost over, this long, muddy nightmare. I truly believe that, even though the promise to take care of it this weekend didn’t materialize. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t had a visit from my landlord this afternoon.

Earlier in the day I’d been thinking the worst, that he’d blown me off and had made the promise just to keep me from pursuing the matter. I know I shouldn’t think the worst of people, especially people I know to be honorable. But when you’ve been dragged through the mud for three weeks, some of it sticks.

But about 3:30 pm, here came the landlord walking through the gap in the back fence, carrying a load of mail. The first thing he said, before I had a chance to say anything, was, “We’re taking care of it tomorrow.” They had some trouble getting the equipment they need, which is what I would have thought if I’d been thinking clearly (instead of muddily).

In all honesty, I have to admit that I was feeling pretty miserable up to that point. I was looking at another day, or week or month, of driving through the mud at least twice a day, and who knows how long without mail delivery. After all this time, it finally started to get me down. If the landlord hadn’t shown up when he did, I don’t know how I would have handled it. It’s hard enough to get through the winter without having things go randomly wrong, as if the universe had a grudge against me.

I did more work and got less done today than I’d planned, but I sort of asked for it. I mean, I didn’t have to fax the time cards to the Boss and ask him for to clarify some of the items on them. I wanted to get the payroll done today, but it could just as easily wait until tomorrow. In fact, it will wait until tomorrow, because my questions triggered some kind of rethinking in the Boss that had us revising the time cards for the last two weeks, over the phone, for endless, empty hours.

It took up more time than I would have spent writing the paychecks, which as a result never gone written at all. (Except my own. I wrote mine, and it will go into the bank tomorrow.)