the snowball to hell

Doesn't it feel like that certain days just have worse karma than others? I'm not talking major, life-changing events. I'm talking about a simple accumulation of annoyances. You start with a stubbed toe and from there on out, things go downhill until you run the car into the ditch and respond "but of Course!!" This is all illustrative. No, I did not run my car into the ditch. The day, however, is not yet over.

We're all happy just now. The four children in my house (yes only two are legally mine) are watching a coveted show on Disney, half of them bathed and clean and sweet-smelling (the two preteen males, oddly enough), and all of them are blissfully downing dippin' dots. I made them all chant the mantra that I was the most awesomest mom of all time, or the most awesomest mom OTHER than their own mom of all time, before I let them have any.

From my credit card being denied at the grocery store this morning, to getting the threatening letter that my condominium was under-insured (no, we do not, nor have ever owned, rented, or contemplated a condominium), to getting an email at work demanding to know where I intended to get the 33K to fund a student this year (WTF???? I never even TALKED to any students about applying for any fellowship to be funded by me, nor do I have any extra money to fund one), to the fact that during our PTA Reflections awards ceremony today, the ONE kid who had their name misspelled on the certificate belonged to the ONE mom who'd had complaints about the way we'd handled the program this year (of all the sucky luck), to my DOG being the one that ultimately enjoyed the pizza that I'd painstakingly custom-made for the four picky kids with various combinations of lovingly chopped spinach and sliced black olives and slices of turkey pepperoni...it's been one blasted irritation after another.

When I picked my daughter and her BFF up from school, they both launched into long stories (simultaneously) about why they both ended up crying during recess and how my sweet daughter E irritated her wonderful teacher into getting all snarky with her today, and how BFF C was in tears all day over the thought of her mom and dad being gone ALL weekend, and then so-and-so pulled her hair and stomped on her foot. Gracious. There is bad karma in the air.

Q had an Odyssey of the Mind rehearsal after school and when I stopped by, it was freakin' soap-opera central. Boy M decided everyone else SUCKED so he wasn't going to even GO to the contest tomorrow, and he STORMED off into the deep netherlands of the middle school in a funk where no one could find him for a while. Dinosaur tails kept knocking over props (and breaking them) and the huge backdrop on the fancy swivel that Q and best friend R designed wouldn't fit through the door so it had to be cut, rendering its balance way off, resulting in a back drop that will require constant supervision (from nutso kids of course.) The exploding brain of the dinosaur is not working, and no one remembered to make the CD for the sound effects. After I witnessed an impromptu psychotherapy session amongst some very stressed out middle schoolers in which they simultaneously tried to convince each other to stay team players while making farting noises, I snuck up to Mr. Drama teacher and asked if they were going to crash and burn tomorrow during the competition. "Maybe." he said. "Or maybe they won't." Thanks, Mr. Drama teacher. (I snuck a semi-large contribution to the drama club to him as he walked by).

I swear I keep vowing to lay off the wine. Then days like this come along and I find myself at the store with a couple of bottles (and nothing else) at check-out. When I run into friend Paige, who asks me why I'm spending my Friday night shopping, I hold up the bag with two lone bottles of Cabernet and she understands. "Oh yeah, Yep. Gottcha." (she has kids too).