This morning got off to a bad start. I had aleady prepared my
breakfast of sausage patty and medication, and was settling
down into the big recliner in the living room of the Mansion
to continue the morning routine. It goes a little somethin' like
this: I pack the lunches, lay out the clothes, wake the devil
(#1 son), wake the angel (#2 son), and sit down for breakfast
and the news. #2 hops out of bed or the couch, gets his own
nutritious breakfast of little chocolate donuts or a Cosmic
Brownie and water, and joins me. Then I eat the sausage,
take the medicine which keeps Mrs. Hillbilly Mom running
on all cylinders without blowing a gasket, and scream at the
devil about 6 times until he gets up and grouches into the
living room to torment us. With just 20 minutes before
departure, he finds his own breakfast of half a box of cereal
and a quart of milk.
This morning, I had just plopped down in the recliner, reclined,
reached for my plate of high-sodium pork byproducts and
pills, and it happened! The paper plate (Hillbilly fine china)
hit my plastic Class of 2006 water cup. It tripped over the
remote controls and crashed to the carpet. Not to be outdone,
three little pills somersaulted after him. The sausage, being a
lazy lie-about, stayed put on the paper plate. I de-reclined.
The first thought was of the pills, because I HATE it when
I lose one of those little boogers in the morning. Wednesday
I had a search and rescue pill party on the kitchen floor. The
runaway was found under the kitchen cabinet, in the midst
of a little barricade of dust bunnies. I still swallowed him.
I ain't proud. And I ain't runnin' out of meds.
Back at Loch Mess, I flipped on the floodlights HH recessed
in the ceiling. There they were. All three, waiting to be rescued.
I grabbed the first one, the biggest one, the Toprol. He slimed
me. I quickly rushed to the kitchen sink and washed his
crumbling remains down my throat. Next, I snatched up
the Lisinopril. Silly, silly, Lisinopril. He's a diuretic. He should
have felt right at home, floating in Loch Mess. I made short
work of his orangy little carcass, too. Then I found the tiny
one, the generic sprite who alternates between orange and
white, three days one, three days the other. He was almost
a goner, but I swallowed his tiny remains, and even licked
the orange residue off my fingers.
That done, I rushed (ha ha) to get towels to mop up Loch
Mess. I stomped like Lucy at the vineyard. I think I got
most of it, though my bare feet begged to differ. The boy
sat calmly, as if this happened every morning. The other boy
got up after only 5 shouts, so perhaps my antics disturbed
his beauty sleep.
I must take a moment to inform you that I blame this whole
bout of trouble on HH. Because I can. Because he doesn't
have a blog, heh heh. It is all his fault, because when he
painted the wall that lovely beigey shade called 'Dune', he
also decided to rearrange the furniture. Now we have a low
table on the left of the big recliner instead of a high table on
the right. And since he plops into that chair every evening, he
shoves it back a couple inches over 3-4 days. So things
are just not quite where you imagine them to be when you
reach for them. So it's HH's fault. I'm sure he has committed
some hideous Feng Shui faux pas. And it's workin' on me.
The drive to school was uneventful. But oh, how I wish the
rest of the morning would have been! After the covert
de-butting of the granny panties, I entered the building to
find my rubber doorstop in the hall. I knew something was
amiss. I do not leave him in the hall. That is just asking for
trouble. Just ask Mabel. She gave me another, darker,
brother of the doorstop when we first moved into that
building. He disappeared. The next one, I wrote my name
on with Wite-Out (hey, that's how they spell it). He, too
disappeared after about a year. The kids tell me he is
living with the business teacher. I'm not taking him back.
This doorstop is a paler version of my ex-doorstop. He
is wearing out, getting a bit of rubber peeled off his back
like a bad sunburn. But I always kick him inside the door
when I leave, and lock him up.
The door was locked, but that didn't fool me. I saw right
away that the chairs were askew. The computer monitor
was on. And somebody not in my class had logged on!
There were mud chunks all over the floor. Aha! They had
come in after my room had been cleaned between 12:00
and 1:00. There was a 'self-esteem' checklist wadded up
in my wastebasket. Hmm...somebody is hurtin' for certain
to throw away a self-esteem survey. My eraser had been
mangled. Somebody had written on my whiteboard with
the purple marker, the only remaining purple marker,
since one disappeared when I had the sub last week.
And...oh, the horror...I hate to relive the moment...
MY BLACK PEN WAS GONE!!!
Those of you who read the Mansion every day know that
Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is a bit anal about the things on her
desk. I still have not recovered. The nerve of some interloper,
to take a pen that does not belong to her, from a room where
she was just a visitor. I am beside myself. I have lost about
6 pens this year due to unannounced sharing of my room.
When I know someone is going to use it, I put out a really
crappy pen, like one the health insurance rep leaves, a big
fat wide-body ugly pen that does not fit right in your hand.
I like a certain type of pen. They don't blot. They are easy
to grip. I buy them myself, people! At Office Max. They are
not school issue. They are not the 100-for-a-dollar Bics.
I hate change. And now I have to use a different-feeling pen,
who writes a little shade off in my gradebook. Fie on you,
you room invader! That ain't right. Oh, I know who it was.
It was not a member of our faculty, but a guest who comes
in once a month or so to meet with a specific group. My
next-door-teacher told me they were LOUD and annoyed
her through the wall. Another teacher told me who it was.
"I even unlocked the door for her. I am shocked that it
happened." Yeah. She's a little bit anal, too.
There is more to tell, but that shall have to wait for another
day, if I can remember it, what with my case of Old Timers'
Disease, as my students refer to it.
Tomorrow I shall tell you of our Trivia team troubles.
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