Thursday, December 08, 2005

Too much fun for one person to handle

Daycare was closed today, since the local school district was closed, and I couldn't have gotten out of my driveway anyway - it was a solid sheet of ice. So I was home today, using a vacation day on a day when it seems to me the office should have just closed. But no one asked my opinion on that.

I called work this morning - we're supposed to check our manager's voice mail to see what's going on in the event of bad weather. Well, since the bus and trains were still running, my work opened right on time at 8 AM. Not even an hour or two late. We were encouraged to make every effort to be there by 8 AM. I left a message telling him I was using the vacation day I'd asked for yesterday, my driveway was covered in ice and daycare was closed, and that I'd be in tomorrow instead of taking the vacation day I'd planned. Does it not occur to them that not everyone can ride the bus or train? (Like I'd want to ride a DART bus on icy streets anyway - those drivers are maniacs on good days.) I'd have to drive 20 miles to get to where I could catch a bus or train. And my co-worker who lives down here made it to work. I'm like, oh great, thanks for making me look bad. Granted, he doesn't have a small child whose daycare is closed, but still - it makes me feel like they'll be looking at me, wondering why I couldn't make it in when he could. K told me not to worry about it, but I have to. I hate working at a job where I *do* have to worry about this. I think my old job had the right idea - if Dallas schools closed, they closed. The Dallas school district doesn't always close, but they'll close when the transit system may still be running - and if it's bad enough for them to close, then we shouldn't have to go to work. I'm sorry, I don't think there's anything about what I do that's so crucial that it can't wait a day because of icy roads.

And it sucks that this ended up being my day off. I love spending time with J, but I was really looking forward to a mental health day - I'd planned to take a vacation day tomorrow. Icebound with a three-year-old, after a fitful night's sleep because a small boy kept squirming and putting his feet in my face and trying to fall off the bed (yes, J slept in my bed again last night, and is there tonight - how in the world can I get him back in his bed?!?), cannot be considered restful under any circumstances. *SIGH*

And now I am frazzled. J was in full-throttle whiney three-year-old mode most of the evening. "I want, I don't want, I like, I don't like," and on and on. And that's always fun on a day where you can't get out because of the ice, and once the ice melts, it's just too damn cold. My damn shower is pouring like Niagara Falls (not just a drip, not just a leak, but a whole damn river), and I was going to fix it on my child-free day off tomorrow, which I'm now not getting since I had to take today off because of the stinkin' ice. The noise of the shower and of the constant running of water in the pipes is making me crazy, and thinking of the damage it's doing to my electric (since it's a hot water leak, the water heater is running all the time) and water bills is making me sick to my stomach. And since it's a hot water leak and it's freakin' cold in my bathroom, the steam is condensing on the shower ceiling and the bathroom windows. I wish I had the money to call a plumber, because I don't know when I'll have the time to do it myself. Even my next free weekend, which is only half free because of K's Christmas party (his work actually has a nice holiday get-together, so I told him J could come home Saturday afternoon so he could go to that - it's a nice restaurant and I told him he'd better bring me some goodies! LOL), I won't be home until 8:00 that Friday night (it's my late night at work, oh joy), and I don't want to start shutting off water and trying to dismantle my shower that late - what would I do if I really screwed it up around midnight and needed a plumber right then? I don't know what to do. I need a miracle like yesterday, for a Wells Fargo armored truck to accidentally lose a bag of money in front of my house or to win the lotto or something.

On the bright side (if you want to call it that), my driveway has cleared off nicely. So at least I shouldn't have to worry about missing another day of work tomorrow. But I get to go back to God knows what amount of crap that's accumulated in my e-mail, my inbox and my voice mail. It's amazing how much stuff there can be to deal with after just one day out of the office.

Ugh. Someone please tell me 2006 will be better, because 2005 has pretty much royally sucked ass.

2 comments:

JamDaddy said...

You should have used the hot water leak to melt the ice in your driveway then take your son to work. You could have told the boss you thought it was take you son to work day. Gotta get creative!
Turn the hot water down when you don't need it to save a buck or two.
2006 will be better!

Lisa @ The Plain-Spoken Pen said...

Now why didn't I think of doing that? It would only take bringing my son up here once for them to realize that they really don't want me to do that. LOLOL