This morning I returned to work after a fabulous Thanksgiving and post Thanksgiving Chicago trip. For the record, I believe my niece is the current title holder for "World's Most Awesome Baby". Five days of non-work fun have left me exhausted and refreshed at the same time.
However, now back at work, I believe I myself am the current title holder of "World's Biggest Idiot". Let me explain. The morning began with me waking up for the first time in five days at 6:45am, as per my usual work schedule. It was tired, I was groggy, I was annoyed. But I was up. And I managed to get myself into the shower. While drying off from a shower that included several moments of trying to figure out exactly what I was doing in there (shampooing? washing? standing blankly and looking at the shower head?), I heard someone enter my apartment. Blind panic set in. What the hell was going on? As the steps came closer to the bathroom door, I weighed the pros and cons of jumping out my bathroom window naked. Pro - survival. Con - death by embarrassment. Then I heard a quick knock and a "good morning". Josh was there, kindly helping me drop my car off at the mechanic's today. Within a span of 7 hours, I had completely spaced on this agenda item. Crisis averted and eventually, car deposited.
Arriving at work 15 minutes late to find my executive director already in the building, I figured the day wasn't going in a positive direction. She informed me that we had finally gotten a call about our federal funding and we would be down $40,000. Poop. I sulked back to my office. What to do? When in time of crisis, go back to the basics. No coffee, no breakfast yet. Must fix these issues. So off to the kitchen. No coffee filters. Poop. Solution? Reworking a filter from another machine. Solved. Next up - breakfast. Two pieces of bread inserted into toaster. Solved. Back to my office to check email while food cooks. Checking email...checking email...checking email...what's that smell...checking email...no, seriously, what's that smell? Off to kitchen to investigate.
FIRE!!!!!! Room full of smoke, and FIRE! The toaster was on fire! Blow it out! Blow it out! It's not working! Unplug it! It's hot! It's STILL ON FIRE! Bowl by the sink - fill with water and douse flames! Done. No more fire. But lots of smoke. Open door to fan out smoke.
FIRE ALARM GOES OFF! Sirens - lights - fire marshals! Threats of sprinkler systems! Firemen arrive and turn off the alarm, after laughing profusely at me.
Back at my desk. To summarize, my first day back I not only didn't get the full federal grant amount we needed (a major failure) but I also set the toaster on fire and set off the alarm system, and had to get the fire department on site to turn it off. Since on Tuesdays we have homeschoolers using our building, I've had the fun task of explaining to 20 people why our building smells like smoke. Oh, and there are a whole slate of other people scheduled to come in today who will also, I'm sure, require the detailed story of how I became the world's biggest idiot on a Tuesday morning.
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3 comments:
Now, now. Let's just calm down a bit. All you really did was space on a car appointment and forget about the toaster being on. Admittedly, the ripple effect of the latter was significant, but I don't think you qualify for the world's biggest idiot quite yet, young lady. Lordy, you're only thirty! You've got years and years ahead of you to hone (or should I say dull) the edge of your absent-mindedness. Maybe someday, when you get to be my age you'll be a true contender for WBI, but for now, just keep aspiring. Remember there are people out there who oversaw our economy, invaded Iraq, handled the Katrina recovery, and thought VHS was the final format.I don't think you're quite in their league yet, Caffeinestra.
PS --Let's see some baby pix!
I can't believe it. The firemen came??? That is a really *** day. I'm so sorry. Sadly, I still think that your day was worse, but I went to get my haircut yesterday and overheard a story being told by the lady next to me getting her highlights done. It's Thanksgiving. Back up a week when she realized that she needed to replace a skylight because it had started to leak. So she gets the skylight replaced, but then needs to get the wood around it replaced because it was damaged, and then the paint needs to be repainted around it and all over the rest of the ceiling because of the damage done from the carpentry and dripping. So they paint the day before THanksgiving. People are scheduled to come over on Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving morning, they wake up and the whole house smells like paint. What better to get rid of fumes but fire? So they light candles to possibly burn off the fumes. Not only does the house smell like expensive european oil essences (this is, as you know, one of the nicest salons in Lincoln Park), but the fumes seem to be going away. They go in the kitchen to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Turkey is roasting in the oven, potatoes boiling on the stove, and they hear a sound from the living room like a christmas ornament has dropped and broken. Except there isn't a tree up yet and no ornaments out. So then they realize that the very expensive european candle has burned down to the bottom and the glass proceeded to explode. Explode over the really, really expensive coffee table. No only did it explode, but it caught the coffee table on fire! So at this point I put down my book that I have been pretending to read (I even turned a page even though I hadn't read it so as to mimick reading) and start to laugh out loud. This is truly against every unwritten rule about salons - don't listen to other folks conversations even though they are 2 feet away from you and continue to read your [insert fashion magazine title here]. In any event, I turned to her and let her know that the story was too good not to overhear! I thought that was the worst day that I'd heard of this week, but now I believe that you have taken first!
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