I woke 30 minutes before my alarm with an urgent need to pee and a blinding headache. Eyes closed, I stumbled to the bathroom, kicking my unplayed guitar along the way. I mumbled an apology to Dave--the guitar is named Dave--and no sound came out. Sitting on the toilet, I tried to speak, "Hello. Hello." The voice that croaked from my sandpaper throat sounded nothing like my own. "Crap, I'm still sick," I said. I was hoping the power of positive thinking would have cured me overnight.
On my way back to my bedroom, I made a side trip to the kitchen for a couple of Excedrin tablets. I stopped in the living room to make sure Dave was okay, then back to bed where I discovered the fitted sheet had torn. The sheets are old and made of T-shirt material, so the tear didn't surprise me, but I was annoyed as my toes caught the hole and tore it further. "Seriously," I said to myself before closing my eyes to let the Excedrin work its magic.
At 5:40, the blinking light of my alarm clock woke me again. "What happened to my cell phone alarm, " I wondered just as the cell phone started beeping. The cell phone read 5:31. I grabbed the flashlight on my night stand and checked the atomic clock on the shelf across the room. It read 5:38. Time is relative and malleable at Frau Gardens.
I showered and pulled my hair up in barrette. Makeup or no makeup? I looked in the mirror again--MAKE UP! Thank God for Bare Minerals and the two-minute makeup routine. I even had time to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch. I grabbed my purse--is my knitting in there?--and my jacket and ran down the stairs. It's November 3rd and my registration expired three days ago along with my parking permit and my paycheck, but the gods of parking enforcement have smiled upon my yet again and there is no ticket on my windshield. The drive to work is mundane, as usual, made briefly better by the new John Mayer (yeah, I know, he's an asshole, but sometimes...) and relatively little traffic. I made it to work by 8:05, which is fortunate since I was supposed to cover the reception area for the morning while Mirna, our usual gal, is at the doctors.
It's really, really, REALLY boring at the reception area. No one comes in and hardly anyone calls, except the boss. I finished the minutes from yesterday's meeting and ate half of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. What will I do for lunch? Mirna came back at 10:30 and I headed back to my office for a day of writing Thank You letters and data entry. The walls between my office and the boss's office are paper thin and she has a penchant for talking on the speaker phone. "I need this report," she said to the person on the other line. "I'm waiting for Laurie to enter the information," the other person said. Two minutes later the phone rang. It was the other person. "She had you on speaker. I'm working as fast as I can," I explain. Thirty seconds after I hang up, the boss comes in and tells me to make it a priority. It is! I swear!
My day, what was left, consisted of entering names and addresses into an Access database. My throat, which felt fine around midday, has gotten progressively work and is back to the sandpaper feeling. Each swallow feels like shards of glass are ripping my esophagus. It's 7:59 and I've been here for nearly 12 hours. It's time to leave.
3 comments:
dang girl. I hope you are feeling better.
Ugh. Sympathies to you, seriously. And to Dave, too.
I am so into your minutiae!
I like this exercise, it lets me "know" stuff about people.
This was a fun read, and not at all sucky, like minutiae can sometimes be.
p.s. Sometimes I can't talk/write right.
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