Good Times

You know when your day just starts off kind of hairy and you KNOW it's going to be one of those days? Yeah. Well....yeah.
Mike overslept, which meant that I had to get up first because I had stupid carpool duty at 8am and had to be at school on time. That meant that there was no one to turn on the space heater for me in the sub-Arctic freezing cold bathroom. (I'm not a little spoiled or anything) As I turned on the shower to attempt to heat up the room, I sniffed experimentally to take status on my cold. Nothing. I sniffed again, harder this time. Argh! My hands flew to my throat. I was suffocating! No air in! No air out! Open mouth. Oh. I was okay. Glance behind me to make sure Mike didn't witness my attack. All clear.
I looked down. There was a worm on the bathroom floor. A worm. A brown, curled up worm. I briefly pondered the worm [How did he get there? Where was his family? Was he as cold as I?], and then forced myself to decide that my problems were bigger than his. Evidently, I was still operating under Heavy Phlegm Conditions and full steam remedies were crucial. I moved away from the worm and into the warm shower.
Unfortunately, the soap was down to those sad little slivers of white film masquerading as soap and I got no suds action. I didn't put my contacts in before I got in the shower and accidentally used conditioner instead of shampoo and thereby conditioned my hair twice, with no actual washing. I didn't realize this until I had dried my Fresh 'n Greasy hair, and by then it was too late to do anything about it. Solution? Ponytail day.
I had already decided that since I was feeling poopy I was going to wear overalls, despite the very specific fashion warning delivered to me recently by my tennis partner about her revulsion that I a) still owned overalls and b) would occasionally wear them to school. I was then lectured politely, but firmly on the evils of wearing overalls in public ten years after they were in style. (gasp!) [Fashion editor's note: Her words echoed in my mind during my entire makeup application and I actually changed before leaving the house.] While applying my makeup, I discovered that I had an eager Chapstick zit developing beside my mouth. These particular blemishes always manage to look like some rampant form of herpes by the end of a school day when my makeup has inexplicably fallen off my face. Goody.
Already jazzed about my day, I jumped into the car and headed off to school, relieved of my near fashion faux pas. While I was driving down the road, my tolltag apparently questioned its will to live and plummeted unexpectedly from my windshield, striking my windshield wiper lever on its way down to my feet, where it landed precariously near the gas pedal. I reached down and patted blindly on the floor, trying to find the fugitive tolltag all while attempting to keep my car on the road. My windshield wipers swept back and forth at warp speed and my car swerved about on the road. As it was not raining, other motorists were alarmed by the erratic behaviors of my vehicle and pulled up beside me to stare at the next stoplight. I smiled back and checked the status of my Chapstick Zit in the mirror. I then cleverly cleaned my windshield to show them that I had fully intended the wipers to run on a sunny day. Heh. Amateurs.
When I arrived at school, I began to gather my throng of provisions necessary for a day at school only to find that the contents of my gallon thermos had somehow leaked all over my passenger seat. Unfortunately, I had carpool duty five minutes ago. I made a feeble attempt to blot the water up, grabbed my thermos of ice and headed for class.
While I walked the kids in, I greeted them cheerfully. "Good morning! How are you?" Ooh! I had a new deep sultry voice going on! A fresh development in my cold. My response? A breathless, "Do you have your voice back yet?" I paused and considered my many response options. No. I don't. I'm actually taking up some ventriloquism in my spare time and I just threw my voice to test it out. "Yes!" I cooed instead enthusiastically testing out my new voice, and my reply was met with cheers. My voice has been the hot topic of the fourth grade for several days now. There are pools betting when I would talk again, wagers about who would get the highly coveted job to read aloud in my place, and numerous remedies supplied by my kids and emailed by their parents. It's really been a community event.
The rest of my day took off from there and really turned itself around. I came home at the end of a long Friday to be greeted by my loving tail-wagging beagle and the remains of my inhaler strewn about the living room. Yay for the weekend!