What time I get up in the morning depends on many factors. How tired am I? Do I have to drive anyone to school that day? How badly does my dog have to pee? The timing is critical and the negotiations with myself the night before as I set my alarm, lengthy.
This morning I woke up with exactly enough time to take Rascal out, eat breakfast, shower and get ready for work. Since I was going out for lunch and didn’t have to make one, I was already ahead by two minutes.
It was still mostly dark when I went to let Rascal out into the yard to pee. I searched as best I could the perimeter and bushes looking for skunks, opossum and rabbits that he could conceivably tangle with, and seeing none, opened the door. Then a thought hit me. I don’t even know why, call it intuition if you like, but I suddenly felt the need to make sure the side gate was closed. I went in my p.j.’s to the side of our house and saw that the gate was wide open. Rascal saw it at the same moment and headed right for it! Somehow, I managed to get in front of him and turned around and pointed my finger at him and yelled “Stop”. He froze. Between you and me I’m still kind of surprised that actually worked. I ran to the gate and closed it.
I went upstairs to make sure my daughter was up. She wasn’t. I gave her a shake and as I was walking away she said “I’m still not feeling very well. Can you drive me to school so I don’t have to wait for the bus?” She had been quite sick on the weekend but I was pretty certain she was fine this morning. But then the old motherhood/my baby is sick/guilt thing kicked in and I said, sure, but hurry up.
Curses! Now I was going to have to rush. I jumped in the shower. When I got out, I glanced at the clock. I was doing okay, but I still had to brush my teeth, do my makeup and dry my hair! I stepped into my closet to get my clothes. I had given my wardrobe a great deal of thought already. I had a very important lunch meeting with a local author that I was hoping would agree to be our first guest on our new talk show. My outfit was designed to be informal yet professional, serious, yet fun! I was going for competent, and charming! When I came out of the closet, I was dressed except for the cream coloured sweater because I was afraid of getting mascara or toothpaste or something on it!
My husband was standing at the sink preparing to lather up his face and shave.
“What are you doing?” I asked. He gave me a look that suggested that unless I was dense, that should be fairly obvious.
“I have to go to work. You don’t have to go anywhere”, I continued. “Let me finish getting ready first”.
He insisted it would only take him a minute and then the bathroom was mine. Having no other option, I walked away to go find a necklace to wear. A minute later I was back, and he was brushing his teeth! I glared at him in the mirror. He laughed at me, and made as if to give me hug….with his toothbrush in his mouth….which proceeded to poke me in the eye before I could get out of his way!
After he had left, I looked at my very red eye in the mirror as I put on mascara. I think at that point I was cursing a little under my breath. Hopefully the redness would die down a bit by my meeting at lunch. I pulled my sweater over my head and I was ready to go. At least that looked nice.
Leaving the bedroom, I reached to open the bedroom door…not realizing my husband was at that very moment chasing my dog up the stairs and straight for me. As soon as I opened the door, Rascal barreled right into me, almost knocking me off my feet…and almost overturning the half cup of tea that I was bringing down to the kitchen. I quickly checked my sweater and skirt. That was close!
Driving my daughter to school, I was given the finger by a man old enough to know better, who was jay-walking across one of the access roads on the Brock Campus, for not stopping and letting him go.
As she got out of the car, Kaitlin wished me luck on my lunch meeting. “You look nice”, she said as she smiled and shut the door.
I got to work with a minute to spare. Normally I wouldn’t worry too much about that, but I had a meeting first thing and I hate to keep anyone waiting. I managed to grab a cup of coffee and headed into the meeting room. As we were leaving, I was telling Debbie about my morning so far. She thought it was hilarious. I looked at my half filled coffee cup in my hand and said I probably shouldn’t be drinking this. The way I’m going, I will probably dribble it all down my sweater.
Yup.
It wasn’t the coffee that got me though. When I got back to my office and put down my folders and notes, I realized I had clipped my pen to the top folder…and now had a lovely black ink stain across my chest. How can I be charming and professional with a giant ink stain on my chest?
I sent out an email SOS asking if anyone had a Tide Stick? Helene did, so I grabbed it and headed into the bathroom. I dabbed a very tiny mark first. It seemed to work. So I dabbed more. The black ink turned a sickly green and spread!! Now what? My right breast looked like it had a black and green bull’s eye painted on it! I grabbed a handful of paper towel, soaked it in the sink and began to dab. As ideas go, this was a very bad one. The mark just got bigger. I suddenly remembered I had a small bottle of bleach in my desk that I use to clean my tea cup every now and again. I ran out and found the bottle, and locked myself back in the bathroom.
I took off my sweater and laid the stained area as best I could on its own across the top of the sink. I liberally poured bleach over it. It took a minute or two, but it seemed to be working. I poured a little more. It was then that I noticed that the mark had seeped through my sweater and I had a similar bull’s eye on my bra! One problem at time I thought! There was still the faintest of yellow stains on my sweater so I vigorously rubbed the material together and then held it under the faucet to rinse it out. It worked!!
I happily put my sweater back on. My very, very wet sweater. As I sat at my desk, I couldn’t help but shiver then Helene reminded me of my little heater that I keep in my office for the very coldest of winter days I sat it beside me on my desk and turned it on full blast.
Mary walked down the hall passing the bathroom, stopped and said to no one in particular: “Why do I smell bleach?”
Debbie started laughing.
“Shut Up!” I emailed Debbie.
Thankfully, I was about 2/3 of the way dry by the time I had to leave for my lunch meeting. Not a trace of ink could be seen and I only ever so faintly smelled of bleach. My lunch guest was interesting and charming and we had a wonderful meeting and he agreed to do our show. I was thrilled!
I guess this day isn’t so bad after all!
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