Monday, Monday, can't trust that day

Let me start by saying that I think that bitching about Mondays, or doing something like responding to a "how are you" with something like, "well, I'm alive, which is all I can ask on a Monday," irritates the crap out of me. It's boring and demonstrates an utter lack of imagination or conversation skills. You will never hear me say anything in the neighborhood of "someone's got a case of the Mondays!"

But good lord, today tested that.

My kids had a hard time falling asleep and thus had a hard time getting up and so the morning routine was a lot of "pleeeaaase, Mamaaaaaa ... five more minutes....." while I ran around getting them clothes and breakfast and then herding them out the door. I take great pride in the fact I pulled up to the school exactly as the bell was ringing.

In the meantime, I inadvertently outed myself to Zeke as the tooth fairy. He pulled out a loose tooth last night after I had fallen asleep. He came and showed me and told me about it, but I was half asleep during the conversation and went back to bed and promptly forgot about it. So when he woke up this morning and saw that his tooth was still under his pillow, he was all bummed, and I blurted out, "oh, honey, I'm so sorry, I forgot!"

D'oh!

"Mama, what do you mean? Is the tooth fairy not real? Is it parents?"

"Weeeeellll...." I sighed. "Did you really still believe in her?"

He's almost 10, for God's sake. I don't think I believed in the tooth fairy past the age of 5.

He shrugged, but looked defeated.

I'm an asshole.

Anyway, after dropping the kids off, I parked at home and got ready to catch the bus to work (I didn't have time to walk). But couldn't find the little plastic sleeve that holds my bus pass, my work ID, and my magnetized pass for my office building that lets me into our suite without a key.

I always place it in one of two places when I get home from work. It was in neither of those places. It wasn't in my bedroom, the bathroom, the laundry room, under furniture, on a bookshelf, in the kitchen, in any of my purses, in the pockets of any of my jackets, or in the car. I looked everywhere a million times and couldn't find it.

Meaning that I had to scrounge around to find exact change for the bus. I rarely have cash or exact change for anything. But after going through various baskets and junk drawers and old purses and the bottom of my backpack, I had $2.60 to get to work.

I walked outside, locking the door behind me.

"Shit, I forgot my coffee mug," I thought.

And then realized, as I headed back to the house, that I had locked my keys inside. And I had given the spare key to the cat sitter that I hired yesterday to take care of Scooby while we're in California for spring break.

At least I still had my phone. So I texted the cat sitter and asked her to please leave the key I had given her in the hiding spot so that I could get into the house later.

I went to work and began the process of replacing my various ID badges and my bus pass.

The building was able to issue me a new badge within minutes. But it cost $10 to replace it, so I was going to get some cash at the ATM.

But my wallet wasn't in my purse where I was sure I had put it.  The same wallet I had lost skiing at Vail a few weeks ago, so I had just gone through the hassle of replacing my driver's license and all of my cards.

And in addition to needing cash to get my passes replaced, I had a waxing appointment at noon, and I doubt my waxing lady would have been ok with an IOU.

At this point, I felt like I was losing my fucking mind. The thought of having to cancel and replace my cards again and show up at the DMV at 7 in the morning to replace my driver's license again was almost more than I could bear.

I scrounged around my office and managed to find another $2.60 to take the bus home.  The cat sitter hadn't been by yet, but then I remembered my neighbor has a key, and she happened to be home, so I got into the house. My keys and my wallet were sitting on the table.

I went to ATM at the market up the block to get cash, including money for bus fare.  But the ATM was broken.  So I went back home and went through couch cushions and coat pockets and found another $2.60 and took the bus back to work.

Finally, I got my building pass, went up to the state general services office for a new work ID, and then got the bus pass replaced.

Then I went and got waxed (the first of the spring - bathing suit season is approaching). It hurt.

So really, all is well and everything was fixable. Except the tooth fairy part. But he'll survive, right?

Long story short - holy shit, what a Monday morning.