Bang the Drum!

“I don’t want to work

I want to bang on the drum all day.”

-Todd Rundgren

It’s not that I’m lazy; it’s that i just don’t care.

6:00 AM I’m sooo sleepy but hey it’s FRIDAY people and that’s a HAPPY day cause it’s the end of the week, right?  Yeah!  Nothing can get me down!

6:10-6:40 AM Eat cereal.  Do breathing treatment with the nebulizer (LUKE I AM YOUR FA-THER) and play pretend farm on the Nook (pretend cows don’t milk themselves),  use long-acting (supposedly) asthma inhaler.  Rinse mouth out a zillion times.  Use nasal spray.  Hope to breathe.  Uh, oh, time to wake up children.

“I don’t want to play, I just want to bang on the drum all day . . .”

Vader: Time to get dressed, Luke.
Luke: Noooooooo!

6:40-6:50 AM Snuggle with Thing One.  Try not to fall asleep.  Encourage her that it is Friday and that’s awesome cause Friday and last day and for God’s sake get up.  Go to Thing Two’s room.  She is in a loft bed which seemed like a good idea at the time until I figured out I couldn’t climb up there and get her out.  Pelt her with stuffed animals.  Yammer at her.  Stand on toes and poke at her.  Yell.

“I took a stick and an old coffee can, I bang on that thing ’til I got blisters on my hand . . .”

6:50 -7:00 AM Forgot to wash jeans.  Just how dirty are they?  Wow, yeah, that’s a few too many stains to pretend I didn’t notice.  Wear work pants that are less dirty.  Thing One wanders in with a pop tart.  Send her to check on little sister and make sure she’s out of bed and getting dressed.  Someone has to do it, and it’s not gonna be me.  I’m prostrate on the bed, but at least I’m dressed.

“I don’t want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day . . .”

7:00 AM Door slams.  Thing One reports that Thing Two is, in fact, dressing.  Hallelujah.

7:00-7:10 AM.  Make stab at brushing teeth.  Actually stab gums.  Thing Two is wearing a black shirt with cats that says “We are Strange” over a pink shirt along with a lacy blue skirt, some sort of pants that hit between her knee and ankle, but no shoes.  There is a strand of pink fake hair in her short hair that she is insisting on tying back with barrettes.  I am just informed it is picture day at school.  I tell her to take the pink hair out.  I can have one standard right?  Thing Two has first conniption fit.

“The teacher told me I should stay after school, She caught me pounding on the desk with my hands
But my licks was so hot, I made the teacher wanna dance.”

7:10-7:15 AM.  Thing two has second fit.  No lunch sacks because my husband insists on throwing out all my plastic bags that I save.  For trash liners.  And lunch sacks.  He doesn’t throw anything away INSIDE the bags, no, just my bags.  Like I can send a lunch in a giant paper sack?  I plot his demise.

I looked something like this.

7:15-7:25 AM. I am informed that it is also picture day for singing group Thing Two is involved in.  She needs her group shirt.  No idea where it is.  I need to get going.  Every minute I’m late means one more moron with stupid stick people figures on their SUVS dropping off their brats and blocking me in.  I get in my car and plug in my MP3 and loudly play

“I don’t want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day”

7:25-7:30 AM Thing One is in the car.  We are grooving and beating on the dash.  Thing Two storms out later, incensed that no one else is upset about her plight.  We drive by Sonic so I can get caffeine cause GOD I NEED IT.

7:30 AM Reach Thing Two’s school.  She is still howling despite my turning the volume way up on my song.  Now she has realized she forgot her lunch.  I give her a dollar – no way am I going back.  I tell her to quit screeching or the other kids will be annoyed.  She says she’s just upset that I got a coke when I COULD have been helping her find her shirt, after all.

“And I get my sticks and go out to the shed, And I pound on that drum like it was the boss’s head”

Count to 100.  Slowly.

7:30-7:40 AM Peal out from elementary school.  Drive Thing One to her school all the way across town because that’s just so convenient.  We yammer and sing along to the song.  This time I remember to stop at her school, unlike the time when I just drove right past it and was almost at work, talking all the time, when I realized she was still with me.  She hangs out as long as she can until I tell her she has to go in.  I feel like a bad parent for making her go to junior high.

7:40-7:50 AM I drive to my work which is actually only five minutes from my house but nevermind and there is no parking because they took away our staff and faculty parking cause like, who needs morale, right?  I drive around a while and find one spot at the very back of the parking lot – one spot in handicapped, mind you.  I get the awesome placard on account of the cold air making my lungs go splodey.  Yay, me!

“I don’t want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day”

Still does not guarantee parking. What’s the use of being handicapped huh????

7:50 – 7:55 AM Sit in car listening to music a while.  It’s not 8:00 AM yet.  Realize I have forgotten my own lunch.

7:55 – 8:00 AM Trudge to work with headphones in ears.  Those college kids have something going there.  I am not actually here, I am banging the drum.  All day.

How is your Friday going?  I’m tired already.  Is it time to go home yet?