I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS...OR TUESDAYS...OR...

Yesterday was one of those days, the kind of Mondays The Boomtown Rats sang about (minus the school-shooting imagery).  Bad enough to make Bob Geldof forget saving African famine victims and instead hit the local smorgasbord before hiding in his bedroom with a bottle of gin and season two of Jersey Shore.  (No, I didn't do that.  I did, however, use a fork to scrape all the frosting bits off the waxed cardboard in the bottom of my sister's birthday cake box before taking out the trash.  Never underestimate the stress-relieving qualities of Crisco and sugar.)  On the way to the grocery store, my nerves frayed and my blood sugar level high, I suddenly pulled over into the local park, rolled down all the windows, and let the cool breezes combined with bird sounds bring down my blood pressure.  It was quite lovely.

This morning I started having another one of those days.  My son, The Professor, departed for the driveway to catch his bus, only to return two minutes later yelling something about leaking.  I pride myself on packing my kids waste-free lunches, which usually works out quite nicely...except for when I hastily screw on the top of the milk-filled Sigg bottle and don't notice that it's slightly crooked.  My boy stood in the foyer with white liquid dripping from the corner of the messenger bag he uses for homework that overflows his regular backpack.  Luckily last night was homework-free and he only managed to soak a binder he uses for his after school Classics Club.  I ran to the laundry room with the messenger bag, leaving a wet trail behind me that was not surprisingly cleaned up by the cats a few seconds later.  I managed to get to the kitchen, pull out a clean Built lunch bag, wipe down all the plastic containers, and get everything back into the lunch box before the bus came.  Whew!

Well, sorta "whew".  My kids basically tag-team in the morning, with The Professor going out the door just at the moment when I'm waking Foghorn up.  I should say when I'm giving Foghorn the first of 47 wake-up calls.  She sleeps completely rolled in a blanket from head to toe and I always feel like I'm peering into a sarcophagus when I approach her bed.  As I was giving Foghorn call #3, I glanced out the window and noticed The Professor and the two kids across the street still standing in the driveway awaiting the bus.  OK, not quite "whew."  I threw on my shoes, grabbed my purse, and popped a piece of gum in my mouth.  (The toothbrush and I hadn't had our rendezvous yet.)  I yelled for the kids to jump in the van and that's when I noticed that the rear van window was down.  That lovely, refreshing meditation in the park yesterday had resulted in a window accidentally being left down during a night of thunderstorms.

Buddy in The Warden's taxi.  He doesn't
even tip well...

A bit of digression here.  My van was saved from completely flooded seats by dogs.  I know, I know, I tend to think canines superior to homo sapiens in just about every category, but in this case it's true.  Across the middle seats of the van was the big plastic cover that I use when transporting Frank and Jimmi and it was still on there from their trip to Uncle Chester's birthday party at Grandma's on Sunday.  It saved the seats from getting wet except for a six inch strip on the far end which wasn't covered.  (The girl across the street was probably particularly grateful to the dogs, since she got stuck in that seat and was wearing a lovely dress that wouldn't have looked as good with a big wet spot across the rear.)  The dog cover had saved most of the floor as well, since in hangs all the way to the carpet and billows out like a ball gown.  The back floor was saved by a balled up old quilt that happened to be crammed there.  I use it when Buddy, the neighborhood dog, shows up at my house for taxi service.  Buddy roams freely far too often for my taste and frequently shows up at my back door, half a mile from his home, usually after a morning's romp through swampy woods following a good, soaking rain.  I keep the old quilt in the van to cover my seats and, in this case, it got drenched while keeping my van floor virtually dry.  I did spend twenty minutes with microfiber cloths soaking up water that managed to find a few uncovered inches here and there,  but overall we were spared complete disaster.  And for that I say "Thank Dog".

I returned from dropping the junior high kids to find Foghorn had completely ignored my order to get dressed and brush her teeth while I was gone, and was instead lounging on the couch with St. Jimmi.  Since The Vulcan doesn't roll out of bed until well after eight, there was no one there to crack the whip.  With fifteen minutes to bus time I ran through the house like a wild woman, shouting commands and threatening bodily harm.  We hit the driveway with seconds to spare, me hurriedly combing her hair and pulling it back into pigtails as the bus turned the corner and Foghorn bouncing around like Ernest T. Bass on crack.  I always feel a little guilty saying that my favorite moment of the day is when the bus door closes behind her, but today I feel totally justified.

There's gotta be some Ben & Jerry's hidden in that freezer somewhere.  Hey, it's medicinal and has fewer side effects than heroin.  What can I say?  The silicon chip inside my head got switched to overload...

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