The Wrong Foot

I had a bad start to one of my favorite days of the week. I love wednsday, just because I know that tonight is Tiki night and I get to spend some time with my friends. First, I have to work tonight at a job I am starting to loathe. Second, my mother-in-law is taking the kids to a petting zoo today and I will have the whole day to get stuff done around the house (laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc.)without having to try and work around my little darlings. This should be a good thing right? Sure. I get stuff done and score big points with Flannery. Flannery reminded me last night that M.I.L. is coming at 8:30 a.m. to pick up the kids. She would set the alarm and I would get them ready to go. Fine.

The alarm goes off at 7:50. A little earlier than I would have liked, but okay. I hit the snooze and expect to doze for ten more minutes. Just as the red velvet curtains of sleep swoop in from the sides of my unconcious mind, the doorbell rings, followed instantly by very loud knocking, the kind of knocking that the police use right before the battering ram breaks down your door to bust you for a crime you didn't commit. I'm in a T-shirt and a fog. Nothing else.

Yesterday I attended an impromtu pool party at the neighbors house. The pool party consisted of the neighborhood kids who swam and played while the neighborhood parents sat in the shade and drank beer, and discussed effective parenting techniques. It was HOT! 90+ degrees in the shade kind of hot. Even Wally, a sworn nonbeer drinker managed to put away four or five. As I am a beer drinker, it didn't take a lot of coaxing for me to put away my fair share, just to fight the heat you understand. By the time we got home it was bedtime for the kids and we put them down without too much fuss, as they were good and tired from a day in the pool. I was feeling the effects of a long day and more than a handfull of beers and retired early, say 9:30ish. I never go to bed this early, but I knew that M.I.L. was going to show up bright and early so it seemed like a good idea at the time.

At four a.m. I awoke to the youngest childs foot in my right ear. These are not ideal sleeping conditions in my book. So I got up, made water that would have made any race horse proad, and went to get a drink. Two large glasses of orange Hi-C and I was off to bed again. Two minutes tops. I tossed and turned trying to regain my former stat of slumber but to no avail. the last two inches of the bed and repeted pokings in the nose and ear by the youngest child kept me awake. I heard the alarm going off to awake Flannery for her day. She hit the snooze. "Please, please get up Dear" I thought to myself,"if for no other reason than I can lay down in your spot and get away from my three year old kickboxer. The alarm goes off again, and before her hand grazes the bathroom door knob, I stretch out in her prewarmed spot to return to my ZZZ's. Fast forward to me standing mostly naked, and trying to figure out what the cop's want at this hour. I find yesterdays pants and answer the door. I didn't think to find underware first, a fact that became abundantly clear when I tried the zipper on the front of my pants as I headed for the door. I fought back the tears of pain and answered the door to my lovely, SMILING Mother-in-law. She breezes through the door like some crack-addled Mary Poppins and proceeds to shove me out of the way so she can get the kids ready for their fun filled day at the zoo. She has been up since 4 a.m. So have I, but our agendas are completely different. She fertilized the lawn, stopped at the post office and mailed a letter she wrote this morning, swung by the bank and deposited a check, dropped some things off at the dry-cleaners, THEN HAD A CUP OF COFFEE!!!, and decided to swing on by, 45 minutes too early.

Yes, the morning was off to a rocky start.

Since they left I have had a pot of coffee and a half a pack of smokes, and I still can't clear my head. I have been doing laundry, as that takes very few active brain cells and reading all of blogdom. All of it. From "Administering Medicine" all the way to "Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?". All of it, comments included. I started reading your blogs from the last story that I could recall reading and worked my way to the top. I thought it would help get my mind going. It didn't. I remained in such a fog that I only left three comments out of all that, and it was only after the fact that I realized I was signed in under the wrong name and none of these people would know who the hell I was anyway.

F*CK MORNINGS! You can have them. I need one more cigarette and some salve, then I'm taking a nap.

Doc