While most normal folks find Mondays off the charts and manic, I can just as easily encounter manic days anytime. Even though I am a stay at home mommy, my life isn’t all ice cream, and fanciful unicorns pooping butterflies and rainbows. It would be really nice if it was, but it isn’t. While most folks thank G0d for Fridays, I am the oddball that dreads it. I may not trade places with someone like in "Freaky Friday", but they usually are just as crazy.
Friday is payday at our house. What that means for me is that the realities of the bills that make a steady stream to my door finally need to be dealt with. I can ignore them any other day, but not Friday. Friday morning I have no excuse because there is always money in the account. I have always hated math, and on Fridays I have to use math to figure down to the last cent where every bit of that money will go. Once I finally have a game plan it is time to grab my keys, head for the door and the open road with the soul ambition of paying bills. It is the day that for about 5 minutes there is money in the account. Once the bills are paid and the groceries are bought, I am sent back to the land of “without” at warp speed, broke until the next Friday. I can admit with a smile that I am used to this existence to the point that if I actually have extra money, I hardly know how to react.
I remember the days moons ago when I worked a full time job. Although a distant memory, I still remember dreading returning to work Monday after the weekend. Once at work, the week would roll along smoothly enough. Before I knew what hit me it was hump day, then Friday rolled around again with the promise of the weekend stretching out before me. During the school year Monday means getting up early once again and ensuring both kids are dressed, pressed, and on their school buses.
Now that both of my kids are at school, the rest of the day stretches out before me in a lazy hazy kind of way. After the bus pulls away I return to a relatively quiet house punctuated by the earth shattering snores of my Boston terrier. This is especially welcome on days like today when I have rolled out of bed with a killer migraine, a slightly queasy stomach, and a good old fashioned attack of TMJ. It is so nice on days like this when I don’t have to face the outside world. I can just hibernate and be miserable alone, blogging when the spirit moves me.
That wasn’t completely in the cards today though. I realized 3 seconds after my son’s bus pulled away that I had forgotten to put his red folder in his back pack. I rushed it to school, only to be shocked to find a set of parents screaming in the office. Evidently the mother wanted to take their child out of school. The woman took one look at me and rushed from the room declaring that she needed to pray. What in the world?? She rushed back in and continued her tirade. I honestly didn’t know what to think and was mesmerized at the scene playing out before me. I am sure that my jaw dropped and my eyes bugged out of my head as I stared at her in fascination. Whether rude to stare or not, the spectacle she was creating was too good to miss.
So you see, any slight diversion in the same ole same ole from my routine can result in a manic day, and it doesn’t have to fall on Monday until next time when I give you another glimpse into the life of a trucker’s wife.
