Some days are just totally off. Like today. Admittedly, I woke up feeling grouchy, contrary, and dying to pick a fight, and the universe just kicked my ass right back.
It started in the morning in the get-ready time, my daughter dawdling with the umpteenth squiggle on her Father's Day card, instead of getting ready for school. And when it was time to leave, and we were already late, I look down at her feet "Shoes?!?!" What are you doing making rainbows on a school morning when your shoes aren't on when it's time to go??"
And then, school enrollment for next year. I'm standing in line, papers in hand. And when I get to the front, I learn that my Pepco bill is not enough to prove residency. I must have a *receipt* for a paid Pepco bill. First, of all then why does the form say a utility bill can be presented as a form of ID? Second, when was the last time anyone got a receipt for paying their power bill? And third, how many non-residents are knocking down the doors to enroll their kid in the nation's worst school district anyway?
I decide this is a day I will drive to work, and not just one but 2 parking lots are full. The third is the most expensive.
Late for my first meeting with our HR manager, who is running four hiring searches for my team, I joke that we all need to have full time house managers to take care of all the household management like scheduling appointments, waiting for repairmen, and taking care of school enrollment. She proceeds to tell me about the three estimates for her apple tree stump removal, and the contractor who can't come to her house at a convenient time. (She works from HOME?!?) So I say, I know what you mean, this school enrollment thing and doctor's appointments for my kid are sucking up all my time. And she proceeds to tell me about taking care of her geriatric, disabled....dog (!) who wears diapers, and she most hold his haunches in the air to help him pee, and move her legs out of the way, so it doesn't splash her. I am sympathetic (I swear), but not today. And it's only 10am!!!!
A clueless colleague is back from her trip, so my babysitting duties are back on. And the other one is nagging me 5 x a day about starting the process for a project that nobody, except her, thinks is a good idea, and I said we would talk about it after July 1....but there's always "one more thing" to tell me first. I want to stick a rag in her blathering mouth, but remind myself that workplace violence is contrary to our organizational values. I learn that a proposal for a new project that everyone objects to is back on, because our President, Big Boss Lady, went ahead and asked the most junior staff member to write the proposal so she could side-step the rest of our concerns. And the facilitator we're trying to hire for our retreat spoke so much jargon babble in our conference call, I wondered if if just wasn't creating sentences using magnetic poetry ("The organizational dynamic is functional for goals and interpersonal success on the pathway to outcomes when the team has integrative results." What?!?! ) Please shoot me now.
But nobody was kind of enough to put me out of my misery. So in three more meetings and/or calls, I'm interrupted by Dear ex-Husband who needs to know if daughter has pj's in her bag; a call from a camp (my last resort) that they are indeed oversubscribed; and my au pair who leaves a message that daughter has a fever, a sore throat, and is now sleeping on the couch. Sometime just before 5, as I'm trying to leave to take care of said sick kid, a colleague decides to engage me in a lengthy discussion on the merits of various types of performance reviews. And as I'm heading out the door at nearly 6, I'm asked if I could just sign some checks. "No," I say, "It's almost 6, my kid is sick. I'm gone for the day" before taking pity on the poor guy, and signing the two checks on the way out.
Trafic - nay, gridlock! - on the way home for no apparent reason. I finally get home. The house is a disaster; my kid is lethargic on the bed; the internet is down; and does anyone know what's for dinner? We're out of sick provisions - juice, rice, apple sauce - and there's only one dose of children's Tylenol. Dear daughter asks for the bucket so she can throw up, but instead just proceeds to cry into the toilet bowl - which makes an awful racket, and I briefly consider if I could just flush myself down the toilet, and live with the rats in the sewer, because that seems relatively appealing.
My original plan was to cook dinner and go for a swim- the one thing that might actually pull me out of this hellhole. But the sick kid and the necessary Safeway run preclude such sanity-saving measures. 9pm, and the kid is drugged up and in bed. Peace descends on the house. I look around at the various pieces of wreckage. Au pair says she's had a rough day, and is going out for a much-needed drink. Yup, right there with you, babe.
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