Ugh.
People who know me know that I adore the holidays. Christmastime is easily my favorite part of
the year, and it has only gotten better since my kids showed up. As a teacher, this week, when exams mean less
time with whiny teenagers and the winter break looms, are especially enjoyable
each year.
But not today. This
has been one of the worst mornings I've had in recent memory. Yesterday, the day when I was supposed to be
writing my exams and doing a dozen or so other important tasks at work, the
ENTIRE FUCKING COUNTY lost the ability to use our computers to access email,
get on the internet, get to our grades, or even pull up our files and documents
(say, an exam you were writing.) So I
was not able to get done all the work I needed to do. I tried writing as much of it as I could
offline and at home, but I also needed to cook hash brown casserole for the
English department brunch this morning.
So when I arrived at school this morning, I was extremely
harried, desperate to finish my exam, which I had to give to my first class of
the day at 10:30. We got there by 7:30
a.m., and the brunch was at 9, so I had an hour and a half to get it all
written, printed, proofed, reprinted and copied.
I ended up being late to the brunch, and when I walked in
with my casserole (I'm not super proud of how it turned out,) the place was
packed, every seat filled with chatting coworkers.
I immediately hated everything.
There was no good reason for it, all the stress just built
up inside my and crystallized into a jagged shard of crankiness. I set my casserole down, grabbed a quick
plate of food without speaking to anyone and left without a word.
I retreated to my room to seethe at the universe. I wasn't mad at anyone (well, maybe at
whomever screwed up the network yesterday,) I simply felt overwhelmed with
mean, angry feelings, like I had transformed into the Incredible Sulk.
I had straight-up lost the Christmas spirit.
I felt like I was ready to beat Cindy-Lou Who to death with
Tiny Tim's crutch and burn down Oh Christmas Tree with a menorah (I believe in
being inclusive.) I was certainly no fit
company. But unfortunately, I HAD to go
up to the plan room (where the brunch was a-brunching,) in order to make
photocopies.
So I went back up, still in a humbuggy huff. I needed to
make a key for my brand new exam (new textbook!
Yay!) so I actually retreated into the storage closet and sat upon a
stack of copy paper boxes to take my own exam like a holiday gargoyle (the
"I Hate Myself on the shelf?")
I took care of what I had to do, and made a few pleasantries
and scuttled back to my hate-cave to stew in my anti-Christmas juices.
It would be great to say that I had an epiphany there. It would be awesome to explain how I was
visited by the ghosts of department gatherings past, present and future, or how
an angel showed my what life would be like without me, or that some
hydrocephalic child explained to me the real meaning of Christmas and my heart
grew three sizes (much to the alarm of my cardiologist.)
But none of these very special episodes happened, and
instead I was visited by hiccups.
Miserable, constant, painful fucking hiccups. Someone up there was definitely pissing in my
egg nog today.
I was a cantankerous old humbug with no trace of holiday joy
in my wizened, blackened heart. And I
was struck by an overpowering sense of familiarity. I had seen this story before, about a
cantankerous bastard who turns his back on humanity is just a general hateful
asshole. Scrooge? Nah, poorer than that. The Grinch?
Noooo, this story lacked meter.
Old Man Potter? Hmm.. not in
black and white.
Then it hit me; I knew what miserable cuss I was acting
like:
I was acting like me in the 90's.
For those who may never have met that asshole, let me tell
you he was the absolute worst. I fucking
hate that guy, and if I ever got the chance to pay him back for all the grief
he has caused me, I would kick his smirking ass up one side of the street and
then probably stop because that sounds exhausting.
But I got rid of him!
I exiled him to the phantom zone, sealed him away with the elder sign,
and tore up the recipe for the elixir I drank to transform into him.
In a panic, I rushed to check a mirror. Sure enough, my fuzzy dome had sprouted greasy
hair that formed itself into a comb-over.
A beat-up black Ghost Rider T-shirt had wrapped itself around my torso,
and a faded black trench coat began unfurling down my back.
He was returning.
I rushed home to hug my children. That failed utterly, because they are in what
is colloquially known as a 'testing phase.’
Normally that is fine, as we are a science-friendly household, and
testing is part of learning. But since
the current test seems to be along the lines of ‘what exactly do I have to do
to force my father to murder me?’ it’s not exactly good for what ails me.
I was fading fast, going code blue (or red and green as is
contextually appropriate,) and in need of some holiday cheer, stat. Any minute now, I was going to run screaming
into the night, black coat flapping, hijack a VW beetle and start blasting
Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill at full volume. Something had to be done.
So I started writing this.
You see, that was the worst part about that guy; he never
actually did anything. He whinged about
his problems to anyone who would listen, but he lacked a proper outlet, a means
to channel that whining into something worth reading.
That guy needed a blog, so he could whine on the internet,
where that kind of self-aggrandizing behavior is seen as normal. So I wrote, I found humor in those infinitesimal
tragedies that compose real life like molecules of everyday misery. And I sent him away.
Christmas spirit restored.
Returning to DEFCON 2. But I
heard him sneer, as he slouched out of sight; “Merry Christmas to all, and I’ll
be back New Year’s Night!”
