How to Start the School Year

5:45am: Wake in panic because after spouse's alarm went on AN HOUR AGO he reset mine for an hour later rather than 30 minutes later.

5:50am: Drag self from bed. Do the various stretches necessary to lubricate the joints of a body that has been through 4 car accidents and one zipline incident.

6:00am: Enter living room where spouse is watching reruns of "Married With Children."  Roll your eyes over the programming choice and consider banging your head on the wall because you've had the argument for the last 7 years about the generally distracting nature of the TV being on when certain offspring are getting ready for school.  Since last year it's been specifically about the wonderfully edifying nature of this particular program and the merits of beginning one's day with the image of Al Bundy's hand down his pants.

6:15am: Bid adieu to spouse and offspring as they depart for the bus stop and work.

6:23 am: Listen to the sound of a bus pulling away as you pour yourself some cereal.

6:30am: Receive the first text of the year informing you of forgotten papers/lunches and requesting delivery.  Curse a blue streak because there is no one in your house you need to censor yourself for.  (This is where I should have stood my ground and simply refused to acknowledge the text or respond with something akin to, "Tough luck.  Have a great day."  In my weakened state I did not do so. Damn fool that I am.)

6:45am: Finish breakfast and peruse email a few minutes. Amuse yourself with thoughts of delivering the forgotten items in your ratty bathrobe and with your hair standing on end as a deterrent to future requests.  Opt for a 100% rate hike in delivery charges to offspring because you don't have time to run there and come back to dress for work. (Yes, I really do charge them for forgotten items.  The first year I made enough to pay for a one hour full body Swedish massage at the end of the year.  I sent the kids a thank you note afterward.  They had conniptions.)

7:00am: Take a tepid shower because the water heater is still not fully rewarmed since the children drained it.  Dress, gather lunch for work, make bed, gather forgotten kid crap.

7:45am: Depart for school.  Dodge deer, squirrels, dogs, students & parents, school buses, construction vehicles, potholes, tourists, and one impossibly slow delivery truck on the way to school and proceeding on to work.


8:15am: Arrive at work.  Survey the fallout from missing all but one day last week due to hospitalized child.  Give thanks for an understanding boss.  Apologize to coworkers.  Listen to the insanity that was work last week.

8:30am: Breathe deeply, smile, and greet the first patient who shows up 30 minutes before we are technically even open.


9:00am-Noon: Work.


Noon to 12:30pm: Wonder how long the last patient will linger before you can have the weekly staff  meeting before you can have lunch.


12:30-1:00pm: Staff meeting where the doc's make note of the highly entertaining new patient who followed you from your former office because she got wise to their dubious practices and went looking for you specifically.  Laugh at Dr. Hubba Hubba because said new patient is now trying to play matchmaker for him after taking pictures of him with her phone to text around to all the available laydeez.

1:00pm-1:45pm: Lunch.


1:45pm-3ish: Work while trying not to be completely skeeved out by a coworker who got a rather realistic looking fake moustache out of a bubble gum machine and who is now sporting it while calling herself "Bruce" and conducting herself in a manner which makes Al Bundy look like the epitome of a gentleman.  It's like a car wreck....extremely disturbing but impossible to look away.  When the topic turns to other areas where people may sport fake hair and whether or not anyone would wear a wig down there define the word "merkin" for you coworkers. Astonishingly, they will not marvel at your vocabulary or breadth of knowledge but will insist your awareness of such things indicates great unwellness.

3ish-5ish pm: Work. Take a call from Calypso announcing she made it through the entire day but isn't sure she can do the same tomorrow.  Listen to the list of roadblocks she encountered while trying to get her medical excuse accepted and the further documentation she needs to be allowed to carry a fricken water bottle from class to class.

5ish-7:00pm: Continue with normal duties and prepare for the next day.  When Milton comes in for his appointment thank him again for the conversation of a week ago and let him know how timely a thing it was.  Bask in the big smile that crosses his face when he realizes the impact he had.

7:00-7:30pm.: Discover your numbers are off when balancing the drawer.  Rectify that.  Complete office cleaning.  Lock the door behind you and depart for home.

7:50pm:  Arrive at home and realize you forgot to leave a note for anyone to put the frozen lasagna in the oven earlier.  Pour yourself a bowl of cereal because that's all you have time for before taking the kids out to dump $98 on binders, folders, notebooks, pens, pencils, highlighters, jump drives, etc because each teacher has his or her own idea about the supplies required for respective classes and woe to the student who has a folder rather than a binder or vice versa but no one can let you know until the first day of school what their particular preferences are.

8:00pm: Depart for aforementioned shopping expedition.

9:15pm: Return home. Have what looks like the amount of paper responsible for the deforestation of Brazil handed over for parental signatures and information to be filled out. 

9:30pm: Threaten to take off at the knees, by way of a million paper cuts performed with this ream, the son who is harping over the speed at which you are filling out papers...because so help me God this day started with you forgetting your crap which meant I forgot to leave a note asking for some food to be heated up so I inhaled cold cereal in order to have time to drag us all to the store and pick over the remnants of school supplies and stand in line with a zillion other frazzled parents.  And WHYYYYY did I do this????  Because I am a human mother who is following the meaning of life, which is to love, rather than adhering to the hamster way and eating my young because they are annoying me!