Article by Wendy McCance
It’s been a while since I had one of those mornings. You know those mornings where everything goes wrong and you wish you could go back to bed and have a do-over?
This morning there was a knock on the bedroom door. My oldest daughter who (thankfully) sets her own alarm clock knocked on the bedroom door and announced she needed to be at school in 5 minutes. It was 7:05am and we usually get up at 6:00am to wake the kids and get ready for work and school.
Somehow she never thought to wake us up earlier. There were four of us still sleeping and we should have all been up an hour earlier.
I have no idea why, but my husband, who was sleeping next to me had turned off the alarm and was sleeping soundly. Well, when we heard our daughter knocking on the door, we both sprang out of bed, mumbling a few choice words and ran around throwing on clothes.
I now remember vaguely hearing it go off earlier this morning. Worse yet, my husband called me later from work and asked if I remembered that when the alarm went off, I asked him to turn it off. Now that he mentions it, yep, I remember.
My husband was late for work. He starts work at 7:00am. Within five minutes, he was dressed and out the door with my oldest child. I was grateful that he was taking her to school because I still had two more kids to get out the door.
So there were two other children who still hadn’t woken up yet, but were supposed to be at a bus stop in 20 minutes. I woke the kids and went about making them some breakfast as they threw on their clothes. I knew they wouldn’t make the bus and that I would need to drive them to school.
The kids were wonderful about getting ready. You would think that this was their daily routine. By 7:40am we were out the door. My daughter who hadn’t had a chance to eat breakfast at home had a bagel with cream cheese on a plate.
Hold on tight, this is where the story gets worse.
The kids got dropped off at school and I needed to rush back home to take a shower before heading off to work myself. On the way home, as I turned a corner, my purse which had been sitting between me and the passenger seat fell over onto the plate that my daughter had her bagel on. There was a big glob of cream cheese on the plate which was now covering a portion of my purse. To make matters worse, my purse had tipped upside-down onto that plate and all of the contents were spilling out.
When you are driving, it’s rather hard to clean up a purse or put the contents of that purse back where they belong. As I drove, more things kept flying out of my purse onto that plate of cream cheese. I was not thrilled.
Back at home, I ran into the house after stuffing what I could in my purse and went about cleaning up the cream cheese mess which was everywhere. It was now 8:15am and I had to be at work at 9:00am.
I ran upstairs and took the quickest shower of my life. I threw on clothes, got my hair halfway blown dry, packed up my laptop and ran out the door.
I got to work with one minute to spare. I felt like a champion for juggling so many things so quickly. I had not a speck of makeup on, my hair was disheveled, but I was at work on time. Whew.
I went into the bathroom and put on some makeup. I tried my best to tidy up my hair and then I went to my office.
I unpacked the laptop, took off my jacket and began to do some work. I opened a container of yogurt that I had grabbed on the way out the door and folded up the lid. I got up to throw out the top of the yogurt container and happened to look down. Somehow I had gotten yogurt on a few spots on my black shirt and believe it or not, in my hair.
What the hell?
I went to the bathroom for the second time and cleaned up.
Now I am back in my office, typing on my laptop about what my morning was like. I am praying that the worst of my morning is now behind me.
Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to go wrong?
Side note: My husband called to see how my morning went. I relayed the story I just told you. As I was talking with him, the woman in the next office came in laughing and pointing at me. She was laughing so hard that there were tears rolling down her face. I told my husband to hold for a moment and asked the woman if she had heard what I had just said on the phone. She said she had and that it was just hysterical.
Great, I managed to embarrass myself. I didn’t think my story was that funny, but apparently I made the woman in the next office’s day. 🙂
Related articles
Wendy McCance
To contact Wendy McCance about a writing or social media assignment, interview or speaking engagement, please email her at: [email protected]
Latest posts by Wendy McCance (see all)
- What is a Writers Residency and How Do I Find One? - January 13, 2018
- Useful Information For Those Writing a Book - January 11, 2018
- The Best Facebook Groups for Writers and Why You Should Get Involved - January 8, 2018
Welcome to my Monday. I woke up to a broken-down car, which then lead to the longest bus ride into the city to get to work. I spilled my coffee in my rush to the office, and I still barely got there on time. I received a pile five times the size than the normal that I’ll have to address by today. Then, after another long commute home, I barely had time to eat because of multiple call from phone answer services that meant well, but was still a distraction. I then started feeling the first signs of a cold (thanks, bus!). I’m still getting over the cold today and I’m only a third through the paperwork. Ugh.
Yuck. So sorry Jamie. 🙁
Pingback: Friday Favorites, February 15th | livingsimplyfree
Gigglingly only because I’ve had those days myself… LOL 😀
🙂
Totally get what you are saying. It’s about that time for me so Thanks for encouraging me to wake my little ones and get out the door!!
Have a great day. 🙂
I have more of those days then I would care to and I am sure I will have more of them in the years to come since I intend to be around for another 40odd years…………..
It definitely keeps life interesting. 🙂
I think everyone has had those mornings, I had my share when trying to juggle single motherhood and work.
🙂
Yep, had a few to many of those kind of days. The best part is they did make others laugh and eventually me when I got over my frustration. 🙂
I have to admit that this woman’s amusement amused me. It was funnier to watch her than what had actually happened. 🙂
Had to chuckle as I know those days oh so well…should probably even write a book on them:) Try this one on for a giggle:
Went to work at age 17, it was a beautiful summer day, and was to be my first day of work EVER!
My Mom believed I should carry an umbrella with me, as it could always rain (although, it was not in the forecast, but never, say never) and I was to ride the bus into town. So, as she suggested, I carried one of those giant umbrellas, as that was before the small compact umbrellas had been born:) I was instructed to discuss my job responsibilities with the Vice President of the Company, and asked to sit in a chair in front of his massive cherrywood desk. I listened intently as he covered everything in such detail, only to realize that when I sat in this chair before the Vice President and his massive cherrywood desk, I had somehow managed to place the large umbrella’s handle in a hairpiece in the back of my hair. I, without trying to be obvious and still hanging on every critical word he was saying, made a lame attempt to nonchantly dislodge the unbrella and hair withoug drawing any attention to my unbelievable stupidity!
Then the worst one could imagine happened. As I listened to these oh so important words from him, I began to notice his eyes going from mine to the top of my head. This continued for a brief period of time, until the man could, no doubt, refrain from asking the question: “Excuse me, but is there some sort of problem occurring?” Ya think? The poor dear must have been awaiting someone from SMILE, YOU’RE ON CANDID CAMERA to walk around the corner. Can you just imagine looking across that giant cherrywood desk at a young 17 year old whose hair was managing to go up and down on her head? Of course, then I began the long explanation of how my Mom wanted me to carry the large umbrella in case it might rain, when it had not been forecasted to do so, and how I had a hair piece in my hair and the unbelievable way I had managed to connect the two together when I went to sit down in the chair across from him….I will never as long as I live forget how wide his eyes became and the thought that crossed my mind of him thinking…”who in the Hell hired this one?” A day never forgotten, but one that has brought a lot of giggles:) Thank goodness for the pocket sized umbrellas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love the story. 🙂
I empathize with those mornings, and also, I think it’s great that they are some of the ones that will stick out when you think back on it many years from now. The normal mornings sort of conglomerate into one fuzzy memory of things going smoothly..but the mornings like this..they add the sparkle to life and help us appreciate the mornings that don’t involve cream cheese purses and flying clothes. 🙂
I love the way you look at these moments. 🙂
I sympathize because, as you note, we’ve all had those mornings, and once the adrenaline pumps us into high gear, it’s hard to slow down again.