Hump Day Can Go Frack Itself

Allow me a brief Wednesday rant.  If today was listed in a Battlestar Galactica script, I would say, "Hump Day Can Go Frack Itself".

This morning, I pack the kids' lunches, because I want them to be healthy and all that.  Two kids leave their carefully thought-out lunches on the counter.  I'm late getting out the door, and my six pack of middle schoolers get into the building about five seconds away from being late for school.  I barrel across town to get to The Job on time, and as I'm driving in the lot, my cell phone rings.  Oldest Daughter forgot her art project in the car.  It is due this afternoon.  It counts for roughly half of her grade.  Frackity frack frack!

I skip lunch to drive the art project across town and pick up Youngest Daughter's piano book she needs for lessons tonight.  I hand the clerk a piece of paper that says "Essential Elements Book 3 Green".  The clerk is confused.  She starts looking through all kinds of file cabinets to locate this book.  She keeps muttering to herself that something isn't right, why doesn't she recognize this book?  Just as I realize I am late to get back to work, I realize I've handed the clerk the book OD needs for her CELLO lesson.  It's like walking into a Christian Book Store and asking to buy a Koran and a menorah.  I get the proper book and leave, returning late for work.  Double Frackaccino!

At 5 p.m., I leave work and drive home.  I think I can just run in, use the bathroom, change out of the work pants and get out the door to get YD and The Son to piano at 5:30.  I haven't seen Current Husband all day, and he has some news on our house closings, so he starts telling me about it.  I'm trying really hard not to be rude, and I need to know this stuff, but the clock is ticking.  I am going to be late for piano, too.  We leave, and sure enough, terrible traffic, we are late for piano.

The piano teacher chastises me for being late, and then I show her the piano book, proud of myself.  "WHAT!?  Those people at the piano place!  They NEVER get it right!"  It is the wrong book.  She is livid.  I try to explain to her that both the clerk and I did not know what we were supposed to get, so we just made our best guess.  She doesn't care.  It is WRONG.  I leave, realizing that I will now have to spend my lunch tomorrow exchanging the book.  I drive to Borders and buy a book and three Lindor chocolates and a vodka sour.  The book is The Year of Living Biblically, by A. J. Jacobs, my book club's selection, but I have to miss book club for the third month in a row.  Frackin' A.

I get home from said piano lesson, and pull my previously assembled chicken and rice casserole from the oven, make some biscuits, and peas.  OD, the vegetarian, does not partake in the chicken dish and I make her a baked potato.  The Son reminds me that this is his least favorite meal, and why does OD get to pick what SHE eats?  YD reminds me that she hates all food that isn't made up of at least 60% refined sugar, and would like jam.  On everything.  I ask them to clear the table, and they each pick up one item and split.  Suddenly, my house is a ghost town.  I start yelling at everyone to get to the table and HELP ME.  CH reminds me that he HAS been helping me, and I don't need to yell at him.  Everyone stomps to the table, and we glare at each other while I say how nice it is to have everyone sitting at the table for dinner, as it rarely happens since The Son started football.  It doesn't sound convincing.

We finish dinner and YD reminds me that there are cookies left from the batch I baked this weekend in the cabinet, on the top shelf, which is roughly five feet above her head, so I'm a little freaked out by her Sugar Radar.  I was hiding them for lunches, but now I say To Hell With It, and I open the baggies and we sit on the kitchen floor, eating cookies.

YD then walks away and starts banging on the piano and singing at the top of her lungs, which is precious in that I want to encourage her to be musical and express herself, but I am ready to staple my ears shut and tear my own brain out of my skull with a rusty fork.  Then The Son decides he, too, needs to show his piano/singing prowess, which would also be precious if he wasn't slightly tone deaf.  The dog starts howling and CH declares it is time for bed.  The angels in heaven with the bleeding ears say a quick prayer of thanks.

It is 8:15 p.m.  I am old and have acid reflux.  I'm unable to sleep deeply and instead dream all night (last night I dreamt I was in Costco, was thrilled they had seven-layer dip, and then I helped a middle-aged man who locked his keys in his truck, he took me out for a drink at the bar next to Costco, and I fled when he went to the bathroom because I suddenly realized he could be a serial killer.  Seriously, WTF is THAT all about?  We don't even HAVE a Costco in the Quad Cities.)  I wake up exhausted every morning, with the deep circles under my eyes growing darker every day as though I am a vampire who lives on the blood of animals and I haven't hunted in a long time.  (That would make a great book.)  These circles grow despite the slathering of $25 per ounce bottle of Vita K I put on every night that is guaranteed to remove circles and bruises.

To beer or not to beer, that is the question.  Here's to you Thursday.  You'd better show up with a Venti Skinny Vanilla Latte and a raise, or I will cut you.