Mondays get a lot attitude problems tossed at it, but I'm not one of those who do. Truth is, Mondays bother me far less than, say, death or cheddar cheese on pizza. This is partly due to my working a retail schedule for so long - when your "weekend" consists of constantly changing days, usually non-consecutive, there's no need to bitch about Monday. It could be the beginning of your work week, the middle, the end, or a day off. Bitching about Mondays is best left to traditional toilers and Garfield fans.
This morning was a little different. Like I do every Monday morning, I got up, showered, and threw on my work clothes. Then I grabbed Jack the Psychotabby, stuffed him in his carry-on Guantanamo, and toted him to the vet, where he got his teeth cleaned. Since he is a cat and not into the spirit of modern dentistry, the vet had to knock him out, which meant I had to pick him up in the afternoon. Since I work a split shift at the tech college, this wasn't a big deal. Once I paid the vet, I took off for work.
I'm no fan of summer. I like summer on occasion, when it's about eighty degrees, sunny, and women walk about in tight tops. Today was almost like that, except I was sweating so hard in the humid morning, I couldn't see if the women walking their dogs in my neighborhood were wearing tight tops, sweatshirts, or even women at all. Within minutes my armpits had vanquished my deodorant and were squirting like a broken fire hydrant.
Despite having to drop Jack off at the gulag, I managed to get to work only a couple minutes late. Just before I reached the front entrance, however, one of my students waved me over from her car and informed me that morning classes had been cancelled. The reason? The building had no power, and in a school that focuses on computer programs, this was a setback. I walked in and confirmed it with one of the IT employees, who told me ComEd wouldn't arrive to correct the outage for a few hours. As a result, I had the morning off. Rah. I only got about four hours of sleep last night, so I figured I could grab some catch-up Zs and return for the evening class.
I walked back toward the Yellow Line station, stopping by Mickey Ds en route to grab a couple of Egg McMuffins, and caught the train. I had just sat down and was browsing on my iPod when They arrived.
There werre six of them: two parents, an au pair, and three kids between the ages of three and five and who screamed at between 90 and 60,000 decibels. The first thing the adults did upon entering the train was to align their double-wide strollers next to each other, effectively blocking an entire section of the train car, including those of us unlucky enough to be fenced in on their side. Realizing the danger, we immediately decamped to the other side of the car before we could be locked inside their homemade concentration camp.
As it turned out, it wouldn't have mattered had we moved to the other end of the car, or the next car, or the next train; these kids were not only thrilled to be on a train, they were determined to share their enthusiasm with as many commuters as possible. They belted out squeals and "choo-choos" louder than most trains. Blasting Ministry on my iPod did no good. I attempted to drain their life force by staring at them in an extremely annoyed manner, but they only made the choo-choo sound even louder. I tried and failed to teleport them off the train with my mental powers. I poured molten lead into my ears. Nothing worked. All I could do was sit and endure this disgusting bit of post-rush hour cheerfulness with the same dour look the rest of the passengers had.
When I finally arrived at the abode, I removed my sweat-drenched clothes and popped a couple of Advil before dropping onto the bed like a sack of rice. The squeals and laughter of the children echoed in my brain like a poltergeist. I'm sure the laughter of children is nice on occasion, but there's a time and place for it, I thought. Namely 1976 in New Hyde Park, NY, while the Good Humor truck rode slowly down the street. But not now. And definitely not on Mondays.
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