Jun 01, 2016
And it all started with a bad decision on my part – my decision to get out of bed and go out into the world. My bad.
My first clue that this was going to be one of “those” days was when I swung my feet out of bed and right into a pool of cat puke. There would be no walking on sunshine for me that day. I rinsed off my feet and started padding down the hallway to grab the Regurgitation Rescue kit (a bucket with a roll of paper towels, a squirt bottle with a mixture of water and a drop of dish soap, and a rag) I keep on hand because one of our four animals is usually puking on any given day. That darn cat had apparently spent the night spewing all over the house. From both ends (his ends, not both ends of the house).
The next 30 minutes not only banished all thoughts of breakfast from my mind, it pretty much drained me of my will to live. And it wasn’t even 6:30 am yet. But, as all you parents out there know, there are still children to get to school, laundry to start, animals to feed (except for the one expelling bodily fluids, which I could smell from a mile away), teeth to be brushed, yada, yada, yada. Oh, and I had to get myself ready to teach my class.
What happened from there can only be described by the term “domino effect.” There was no milk for the kid’s cereal; not everyone had clean underwear; there was no bread, so no sandwiches to pack in lunches; I forgot my flash drive with the PowerPoint on subject/verb agreement I’d spent hours creating for my class…I think I’ll just end here so the flashbacks will stop.
By 10 am, I realized how hungry and crabby I was (the fact that I started banging my head against the wall when my students kept identifying words like “a” and “swim” as nouns also made me think there was something amiss), so I had a double chocolate chip muffin to make myself feel better. I realized I had made a terrible, horrible, very bad mistake when I calculated the muffin’s Weight Watcher Smartpoints.
“OK,” I thought to myself, “I am in control of this day, not the forces of evil. Sure, I’m a little banged up, but I am Woman, and Momma’s gonna roar!”
I pulled into the gas station muttering mantras like, “I am the power, the master & the cause of my attitude, feelings, emotions & behavior,” yelling “My THOUGHTS create my reality, and I ONLY create the best for me!” as I was pulling away. The loud thunk! I heard as the hose hit the side of my car made me realize that I had forgotten to put the gas nozzle back.
That clinched it. It was a TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, VERY BAD day.
I’ve been there before, and I’ll be there again, but I try to remember that not all days are like that. Some are not peppered with puke, and everyone has clean underwear. Some are filled with fantastic moments, like a child telling me she/he loves me, or a student identifying “chair” as a noun. And those are such wonderful, lovely, very good days.
