It happens to everyone: that one morning (usually a Monday, no?) that everything goes wrong. I mean everything. It’s the kind of day where you are constantly looking over your shoulder expecting hoping that it’s all some lame prank by that smug Ashton and his trucker hat nation. But alas, the neo-hippie is no where in sight. You are actually just screwed, and if there were millions of people at home were watching this series of laughable events, no one would even believe it was unscripted. Yea, THAT was this morning.
The storms last night were violent. No problem, it happens often. The power cuts out around 10:30 pm. Peeved that I’m up later than normal, I return to bed once the tornado sirens let off, and simply set my cell phone alarm as a reveille since The Alarm is dead without power. Simple.
So to my astonishment, I awoke this morning feeling refreshed. This is odd seeing as I went to bed much later, so I check the time. Power still not on, I grab the cell phone: 6:18 am. Oh, only two minutes before the alarm. Great. Wait, why the hell is it so light outside? CRAP. Strike one: Cingular doesn’t auto-update phones with daylight savings, so 6:18 is really 7:18 once I restart my phone. I’m already an hour behind.
I run to The Fridge (in the relative dark) to see if it’s peed ice water all over the floor that I spent 2 hours painstakingly cleaning last night. Happily, it hasn’t, but the week’s food that we bought last night at the grocery is now in immediate danger of spoiling, as it is hour numero nine without power. This, I need to fix.
Coolers! Outside! Wait. Keyless entry to automatic garage door doesn’t work without power. Does she have a key anywhere? Of course, she doesn’t know! Finally, I break in to the garage, grab the coolers and rush in to The Fridge to purge her of expensive food. I get most of the perishables out, save some soy milk and OJ. This is an easy fix, though.
No power for coffee (the one thing that could right this morning’s wrongs), I have to improvise breakfast+caffeine. Late already, I decide to mix some OJ, soy milk and a leftover Redbull that someone donated from a party, and threw in some whey protein for nurishment. Not coffee, but good enough. Off to get dressed in the dark, lighting candles for the wife to get ready with along the way.
Fully dressed, keys in hand, I begin to mix breakfast in a shaker bottle (since the blender is out of commission). What fails here is common sense, which apparently is also down with the exploded transformer in our neighborhood. Imagine, if you will, explosion of equally epic proportions, sending the orange-Redbull concoction throughout the entire cleansed white-cabineted kitchen, and suffiently showering me in it as well. And by “showering” I mean I was drenched. In Redbull and sticky orange milk-juice. And the kitchen looks like a war-zone, with milky drips covering a full 10-foot radius (up AND out). Jacket off, shirt off, back to square one to change clothes. In the dark.
Still having not solved the “what to do with the food in the cooler all day” problem, I decide to take it all to her parents’ house. But of course this adds another 10 minutes of trying to get ahold of someone to confirm. At this point, I refuse to believe that this is all possible in the first 25 minutes of the week.
Out the door to figure out how to manually open the garage, adding another 30 minutes of commute time (since of course BOTH of the in-laws freezers are chock full already), I finally make it to work only to find not another single person in my office has come in yet.
And now I sit here, picking encrusted OrangeBull material from my face. If anyone asks if I have a “case of the Monday’s” because I look like a preschooler dressed me, they’re getting punched in the face, for sure.
