I ended my own post with "Word."

“Are we early?” asked Ninja Boy.

“No, we’re late.” I answered.

“Normal late?”

“No, really late.”

I hurried and dropped them at their daycare, spacing out that I wanted to ask her hubby what it meant when your coolant light wouldn’t go off. About 3 miles down the highway, I realized Sunshine hadn’t shut her door all the way. I pulled off onto a side road to jump out and shut it. I got back in the car, simultaneously putting on my seatbelt, taking a drink of coffee and proceeding down the road when I saw a huge snow bank in front of me. With no time to stop, I lurched my car up and over the icy bank, confirming the fact that there was a curb underneath it.

The tellers at a nearby bank watched as I rocked my car back off the embankment (no small feat), checked for damage and drove my car down the road the city had intended. To be fair to me, it snowed last night, so it wasn’t easy to tell which direction the road went – a sign indicating you needed to make a hundred degree turn would have been extremely helpful, so thanks for that, city council. The wobble in my tire suggests I may need to write a letter.

The thing that sucks the most is I promised myself this week would be better than last. Last week I nearly lost my mind.

Tuesday, my last ‘friend’ here at work got laid off. Luckily, she got another job the same day and was able to stay the rest of the week to help me, yes ME, learn how to do her work.

I am not happy about this. Not only because all the people who had only shown me ONE of their faces were GONE. (The rest of these women are very sweet to me – to my face. They spend half their days gossiping about everyone else in the office and I’d be a fool to think I’m an exception.) But I’m also very upset because I said 6 months ago that I did not want to do her work. I’d done her job before – three years ago when I started here – and I hated it. Doing that job is like asking to be criticized. Okay, that’s enough of that. You get the point that now I have WAY more work to do, right? Work that I HATE? Okay…moving on.

With what seems to me to be seasonal depression – or even just “down” time – consuming me, the last thing I needed was more work. I have been doing everything I can to get all my work – of the paid and house varieties – done before I pass out, which lately has been 8:30. I can’t get up in the morning. I’ve had BAD headaches.

I promised myself that my weekend would be filled with nothingness. No big chores, no social events and no getting dressed if I could help it.

Well, The Man worked overtime Saturday, leaving me to get the kids to Sunshine’s basketball practice. Our morning went rather well. Until we were on our way to the school … Gee, this is starting to sound familiar …

A light came on. That’s all I can explain. I figured it meant my coolant was low (cuz I’m smart like that) but I had no idea what THAT meant. I finally got a hold of The Man and asked him to come home early. He did what he could – topped off the coolant, checked for leaks, he even changed my oil. But the light is still on. This will be a good test of my sales skills when I finally sell my car… “No, the engine light is just on…there’s nothing wrong with it.” “Oh, the coolant light?? Yeah, just stuck on…” “ETS…now I’m not even sure what that light means, but it’s ALWAYS been on…”

Anyway, so my weekend wasn’t looking like it was going to fix my bad week at all. Sunday, I had a horrible headache and slept most of the day. I did take some time to play Cadoo with the fam – which turned out to be REALLY fun. A little hard for Sunshine, who ended the game crying, but it does say ages 7+, so she did great.

So this morning, I forced myself to continue my Death Trek (I didn’t mention almost spinning out, did I??) to work, persuaded only by the thought that I might be able to leave early. I got here to find that the other lady I cover for had a funeral today and I was needed here to, well, cover for her.

I feel a little saner today, a little healthier, a little more capable of handling the extra work. But I do have to add that both my BONUS and my RAISE this year had better be adequate if they plan on me staying to do all four of these jobs. Word.

**Edited to add that I got my garbage disposal installed by a PROFESSIONAL this weekend. (He insists I call him that.) So, thank you Kristina, for lending me your husband. Now I can grind up garbage IN MY SINK. Word.