What part of 'NO' don't you understand?

Subtitle: If we bug her enough she'll give in and say yes!

The picnic on Friday was very nice. It wasn't too warm or too cold, the sun was out and everyone had fun. Even Ed for a while. That is until he blew out his ankle.
Why is this fact important to my life? Ed doesn't work in the same department as I do. Our paths don't cross very often any more. We did work in the same department for a while, but we've both moved on from that job.
This fact became important to my life at about 4:45pm. I was looking a few things up and finalizing a few things for the weekend. (i.e. I was looking up what was going on at Celtic Fling on Sunday...) I get an IM from the head of projects (Ed's boss). Call me x1234. Uh-oh. "You know Ed hurt himself at the picnic." "Yes, I'd heard...." "Are you in the office on Monday?" "I was supposed to be coming in late... Why?"
To make a long story short, Ed was supposed to go on a sales call to upstate New York Monday and Tuesday. Can I go? I can, but I don't really want to. I'd have to reschedule things. (An almost lie... I was coming in late Monday so I could spend the morning with Gak, since it is his birthday...) I try and beg off. I state very clearly if you can't find anyone else, I'll do it, but I really don't want to.
My former boss calls me Friday evening all but harassing me about it.
I play phone tag with my current boss (his cell died...).
I get guilted into going. "Mike could go, but him getting back Tuesday in time to pick up his son from daycare would be really tight."
This means that instead of sleeping in a little and having breakfast with my honey on his birthday, I'm stuck leaving here by 7:30 or 8am to drive up to Syracuse, NY then over to Buffalo and back. I'll be home Tuesday night or Wednesday some time, depending on where I am Tuesday and what time we're done with the meetings.
I keep telling myself at least it's local. But it's not. I mean, local would be going down to Philly or something within a 3 hour drive where I could come home that night. No, this is not local. This SUCKS!!!
I tried so hard to tell them no. I even thought I was off the hook yesterday when my boss didn't get back to me. I guess I was wrong. I could have pressed the issue a bit more, but I guess I just felt guilty that my excuse for not going wasn't as 'valid' as Mike's.
Work owes me big time for this, but I doubt I'll ever be able to collect.

We did have a good Sunday. We didn't go to either the Faire or Celtic Fling. We did go down to the mall and bought new video games. If it wasn't so gray and almost raining we would have headed up to Bethlehem, but we just didn't feel like it. I hope I did OK for Gak's birthday. He really deserves more. He deserves a lot more time with me, but work cut that short. I'm going to be cranky about this for a while I think.
Oh well. I hope the rest of your weeks are good and stress free. Peace to all and safe travels.