HM Gives You A Quickie

Quickie. Not that kind. I am rushed. It has been a most dreadful
day, a day of which I do not have the time to detail the awfulness
that you so deserve a good description of. But I got in my sentence-
ending proposition, by cracky!

I knew it was going to be a bad day. My heart knew it, anyway,
because on the uneventful drive to work, the ol' ticker was doing
that jumpy, skippy, beating kind of thing. Like right before a
panic attack, if you've ever had one of those thingies, and you
get kind of shaky feeling. Or when you have just started taking
that demon Toprol XL, or whatever it is, that you have not
adjusted to yet.

Anyhoo...#1 son had to take out the trash this morning because he
forgot to take it to the end of the driveway last night. We're talkin'
a big green dumpster, people, down a 1/10 mile driveway. So he
did it this morning, in the 7 degree cold. Then he remembered he
had to take 10 cans of carrots to his 1st hour teacher to win a
pizza party from FCCLA, and he had to take a gift bag to his
Valentine, and he brought the wrong book home Monday for his
homework, but went back for the right one, but had that extra
book to haul around, plus the entry papers for his Science Fair
project that he didn't want to wrinkle. So when we got to
Basementia to drop him off, we had to wait for him to make a
second trip to the car.

#2 was dropped off uneventfully, clutching his kindergarten
Valentine box in a Wal*Mart bag, because he was too lazy to
make another one for 3rd grade. I got to my first building, and
promptly discovered 2 shiny new quarters behind my Large
SUV. Did I turn them in? H*LL NO! I thought, "It's OK. I'm
Even Steven." No, I'm not.

The graph paper I was needing was not the kind I had in my
cabinet, so I had to stroll to Mabel's end of the building and
mooch one from her. Then I saw that she had my birthday
gift, so I again thought, "It's OK. I'm Even Steven." No, I'm not.

First hour Mabel brought my gift and we had the gift-opening
festivity while my 10th grade boys rolled their eyes. More about
the awesome gift in another post, with photos. Then I helped
with a little biology, tried to graph my T Rex with the coordinates
I got off the internet, and filled out some ISS papers.

Then the turn for the worse began in earnest. I wrote up a kid
2nd hour. Only my second one all year. The first one in this
building. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom should not be provoked. Let's
just say that when you are told to sit down 3 times, but don't
stay seated, and are told to be quiet 3 times, but instead start
reading aloud from a library book of the 3rd grade reading
level, it's time to face the consequences. Pay the Piper. Bite
the bullet. Reap what you sow.

Third hour was uneventful as third hours go. I raced to Lower
Basementia to find that the bell did not ring. "Oh," I thought,
"Something is up. They must be ringing it manually again." No.
It was advisory day. The schedule was off by 20 minutes. I
could have gone to the bathroom! So I did. And again, I thought,
"I am Even Steven. I get 20 extra minutes today." No, I'm not.

At 2:30, I got a special message over the intercom: "You have
a meeting immediately after school at the other building." Umm...
what about my kids? What about my mother who's stopping by
Basementia with #2's birthday gift? What about the haircuts
we're getting after school because the $10 in coupons is not
good after Friday? What about the birthday cake we have to
pick up at 3:30? What about the fact that it takes 20 minutes
to get there, what with the difference in the clocks, and the
bus and pick-up traffic? Oh. That's MY problem. So I hastily
and against the rules took out my cell phone and called the
other principal, who said that yes, it was vital that I be at the
meeting, so I then called my mom and her POST-SURGERY
PINKY FINGER WITH A PIN IN IT to see if she would
come in and watch the kids so they didn't kill each other while
I was in the other building in a meeting. Then I imposed upon
my fellow mathie to watch the one remaining student I had
that hour (they're dropping like flies, I tell you), and then called
the office to get permission to leave 5 minutes before the bell
in Basementia, which was one minute AFTER the bell in the
other building, and was told go for it. So I went to the meeting.

Which lasted until 4:30, and was due to a big misunderstanding
in my opinion, but I can understand where the powers were
coming from, so anyhoo, we had a big ol' gabfest, and then
were released on our own recognizance, we troublemakers,
all 9 of us, to create havoc another day. Mabel, have I got a
story to tell you!

Upon taking back my spawn, we hit the road to McDonalds,
their fast-food Mecca, since it was bowling night for HH, and
waited in line 15 minutes for the not-so-fast-food, until I told
#1 I was going in to get my money back, but he whimpered,
"But we want the FOOD!" so pitifully that I sent him in to get
it, since they usually seem to set our order on the counter and
forget about it. That made us too late for my Sonic Cherry
Diet Coke, which made me quite the unhappy camper.

Next stop was the cake pick-up, because I was in no mood
for the haircuts at this late hour, and in the store I waited and
waited for a woman ordering slivers of sliced ham and sliced
turkey and sliced-whatever-you-got-in-that-case so this woman
who only wants to pick up her son's 9th birthday cake can
cool her heels a while longer.

When we reached the Mansion driveway, #1 son got out to
bring the dumpster back to the house. He pushed it through
a big puddle of slushy ice just to get his foot wet, and upon
parking it by the garage, climbed into the moving LSUV to
ride the 5 feet into the garage, and commented, "The dumpster
isn't all the way empty." That fool had pushed the unemptied
dumpster back to the garage. Sometimes, because the hill is
icy, the trash men wait a day to come up in here. The boy
said, "I thought it felt kind of heavy." Now he has to push it
back up there tomorrow morning.

Neither boy would help carry in the cake and stuff from school.
HH won't let me starve them into submission by refusing to
cook for them until they obey and contribute to the household
chores, so they really see no consequences to refusing. They
have learned from the master, as HH was laying face-down in
the large triangle tub in the master bathroom. Don't get your
hopes up. He was still breathing. So I went back out to carry
it in for myself, seeing as how no help appeared even remotely
on the horizon.

I warmed up some leftover chili for my supper, and cracked
open a can of Coke, the real thing, not the Sonic variety, and
both are waging a war with the lazy, lie-about, slacker epithelial
cells of my stomach lining. It has not been a pleasant day.

The icing on the cake was...well...the icing was fine, but when
we cut into the white cake that I ordered, it was chocolate.

Which I suppose is the imperfect end to the imperfect day.