You know those miserable comedies where the plot is a series of torturous events concentrated on one character? I hate them.
But Friday, it happened to me.
First it happened before my alarm clock went off…When someone busted into my room and told me I had to take my sister to school if I wanted a car to drive to work today. Because sleep is precious, I gave her the car and opted to ride my bike to work.
After ten minutes of fussing with my bike lock, I gave up and stashed the bike in a corner of the gymnasium. Hopefully, no kid would steal it. No one did, so I guess that was a plus. But I DID see a dead rodent of sorts as I was dragging it in doors. Death has a really unpleasant odor.
My boss was sick, so she was gone. My Friday cook was gone, so she had a replacement. Basically, I was the only regular. 45 minutes into the day, our tea machine broke. This is a big deal, because not only are we FAMOUS for our sweet tea, but junior high gets really upset when you don’t give them their mid-afternoon caffeine spike. I had been prepping the pizza when I heard my co-worker Jennifer holler, “Umm, help guys!” Jennifer is one of those amazing people whose tones of voice it always chill. She could be freaking out about winning the lottery, but her tone of voice would sound like she had given her kids permission to go to the park. Its a welcome balance to my insanity.
So, she is calling for our assistance because the machine will not stop running the water. Watery tea was everywhere and we had to keep rotating giant containers to collect all of the water.
That put us behind schedule.
Then we had lots of food options for the kids, and in case you are wondering, options make the job a little more strenuous. Not stressful, just more work. Its hard enough to get 10 kindergartners to decide between applesauce and pineapple, now add in pizza, shephard’s pie, tater-tots, ketchup or not, cookies or cookies in a cloud, and don’t forget to put your lunch ticket in the basket…thanks sweetie.
The tea machine fixers came and helped us out with our liquid problem. However, during that process they had to shut off the water—which mean no dish washing! We had a massive pile of dishes, bowls and trays by lunch time and had no guarantee we could wash them after lunch. There is a constant fear of inspection in the kitchen. Not because we are sloppy, we always do great during inspections, but they don’t spare you demerits (or whatever they do as punishment for non-perfection!) because someone else’s machine is broken and you can’t do dishes.
Even though everything seemed to be going wrong, there was a great spirit of comradery the entire day. Stress makes some people angry, shut down, recluse… I think stress at work just makes me silly. When the final bell rang and the kids went back their classrooms, we sang “It is Finished.” Thankfully, by that time the water had turned back on.
I thought that Murphy’ Law would stop after I rode my bike home. But it followed me. As I tried to nap, there were so many distractions. My dear, dear, sister started screaming my name when I finally reached REM cycle and I was forced to leave the couch and put on my “Super Sister” cape to attend to whatever was killing her. It was only her foot in a puddle of blood.
. .
My exacto knife had fallen on her foot. It was just a flesh wound, but she’s a gusher. I’ve got to stop leaving my craft supplies within the reach of children.
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