Not My Best Moment

Yesterday, I drove through a roadblock.

I wish this were a beautiful or simply witty analogy for a major milestone of my growth, reflecting the majesty of my awesome spiritual/emotional/blahblahblah progress.

Sadly, it is what it is.  I. Drove. Through. A. Road. Block.

But in my defense?  It was a really horrible day!  The evidence speaks for itself:

1. I woke up late.  I refused to tear my lazy butt out of bed, because I don't seem to think I need to go to sleep until after midnight.  This caused me to flood the house in a wake of chaos and frustration, driven by my own self-loathing brain rattling cry of, "Way to go, Ms. Responsibility.  Even your CHILDREN were ready to go before you.  Like you couldn't have forced yourself out of bed 10 minutes earlier?  What kind of mom are you?"
2. Therefore, I left my breakfast on the kitchen counter, which I had stayed up til midnight lovingly baking for myself the night before (yes, I can lovingly bake things for myself!).  My delicious and nutritious egg & spinach muffins were most certainly devoured by my giant horse of a chocolate lab within minutes of my truck backing out of the driveway. Stupid, mouth-breathing, hairy beast.
3. On the way to drop the boys off, I frantically began a mad search for my classroom key, which is always --yes, always, I don't make mistakes, duh-- sitting in the center console of the truck.  No keys.  Nokeys.nokeys.nokeys, and this topped off by items 1 and 2, threw me into a panic.  I was already late, so by the time I got to school, there would probably be kids waiting at my door, which AWESOMELY, I would be unable to open.  Splendid.
4. Because my leadership abilities refuse to stay hidden, I am currently the team lead for my grade level.  I email all my happy teammates with important tidbits for the week, which, within minutes, is being replied to with the news that I am giving them bad information, and my plan for the week won't really work because, oh, in case you had forgotten Kelly, you are a moron.  Gotta love the self-talk that spirals downward until you are sitting in a pool of sticky black ink, praying for the last swell of oxygen to leave your sad, angry, little body.
5. Prepped my kids for the writing test they would have to undergo the following day, which always makes me feel a little like a bloodsucking muckity-muck, because the way in which we force them to write seems to have the express ability to turn them all into one massive UniAuthor with several sucktopus tentacles waving about haphazardly as they die, ever so slowly.  I spend every day attempting to keep their inner-writer alive and not suck their creativity away.  Testing days are painful for me.  And them.  So by the end of the day, I'm on high-alert, red-flag, ABANDON SHIP OR DIE mode.  And I flee from the building just as fast as my feet can carry me.

Reader, you may be looking at this list thinking, "Really?  REALLY?  This is what got you all out of sorts?  When people are homeless and dying and don't have clean water and and and..."

To be honest, I think it, too.  Nonetheless.  Yes.  That is what had me all out of sorts.  Bite me.

So I pick up Dos, and we're chatting away and I'm trying to get home as fast as I can because a) if I don't get the chili cooking right now dammit, then we will all die, and b) Amanda Palmer is about to have a webcast, and since she is marrying my favourite author EVER, I figure I should know more about her.  I don't know.  It seemed important at the time.

The roads around the boy's school are currently torn to shreds with road construction, so I follow a detour sign onto a side street, which leads to a bloody roadblock with no freaking way out but to turn around, and no way to turn around due to all the damn cars lined up on both sides of the streets.  Also, as I am sitting there, staring angrily at the barricades, breathing deeply, two more cars pull up behind me.

I throw the truck into reverse, begin to back up, only to watch the driver of the SUV behind me stare vacantly in my direction, and stay put.  I slam on the brake.  I stare, seeing nothing.  I sigh.  I look at Dos.  He looks at me.  I stare some more, watching cars drive down the road in the direction I need to go, on the other side of the barricades.

I throw the truck into drive, drop an F-bomb in front of my child (MOM OF THE YEAR, HOLLA!), and weave through the barricades, a group of construction workers gaping wide-eyed at me, as I listen to the somewhat satisfying kathump-kathump-kathump of road blockades dying beneath my tires.

And then I went home.

And started my chili.

And watched Amanda Palmer.

And waited for the police to show up at my door, arresting me for things like civil misconduct and property destruction and public display of moronic behavior.

Thankfully, I think the only jail time I'll be doing is the guilt-infused cell I seem to keep myself locked in.  I wonder which is worse: imprisoned behind metal bars, or locked in behind years of self-amassed guilt? At least when your jail sentence is over, the gates open up and let you out.  With the guilt?  I've never managed to find the gate.