Face Plant

In the middle of the night, I awoke suddenly, feeling sick from head to toe, and made the dash for the bathroom. A couple of more times I had to repeat the trip at a run, but finally fell back asleep and stayed that way until 6:30 this morning. No walking the dogs; no doing much of anything. I'm not sure what bug found me in the middle of the night, but it is accompanied by body aches and pains from head to toe, as well as flop sweat, and my constant companion, the throbbing on the inside of my right knee.

When the phone rang at 7 am and I saw the caller, I knew another problem was going to be thrust at me, one I have been anticipating, but dreading. My next-door neighbor does not have transportation, so I offered to take her to the grocery store one morning, which ended up being a grocery store that required a round trip of 35 miles, rather than a quick stop at the store down the street. I addressed that issue, but there's always a loophole for a person who knows how to take advantage of a person who just wants to do the right thing and help those less fortunate. So, the other evening, it was a phone call to take the daughter to the grocery store so they could eat dinner. Yesterday, I was on my way out to do my shopping/errands, and I saw the Mom standing on the street, so asked her if she needed a ride. Yes, she was on her way to the college, the same direction I was heading, so I took her to the campus, left her to find her own way home, then came back to my errands before returning home.

This morning, it was a request to run her daughter to the bus stop. The mother petitioned for the daughter to attend another high school in the same district due to a fight with a girl at the local middle school and all the baggage that goes along with that situation. The petition was granted, but that's contingent upon the family having transportation to the other high school, which is 15 miles on the other side of the freeway, which they did have when they petitioned, but no longer have. Thus, the girl has to ride the city bus, and that means she has to be on the main street through town no later than 7:10. She wasn't going to make it this morning, but neither was I. This handwriting has been on the wall all summer, and I've been dreading being asked, but I knew it was coming -- just thought it would take longer than the 5th day of school to arrive.

I said no, I'm not dressed and I don't feel well. I'm still not dressed and I still don't feel well, and it's been a couple of hours since she called, but whether I'm dressed or not, feel well or not, I'm being taken advantage of and I don't like it.

I've schlepped them to the library; I've schlepped them to do their back-to-school shopping; I've schlepped them to the grocery stores, the phone store, the recycling center, and to a fast-food drive-through, as well as their bank; I've taken the mother to her college class. So far, I've received one "thank you," and that was tossed at me as the door shut yesterday after I dropped off the mom. Gas money would be nice as I've mentioned a couple of times that because I am driving 2 tanks of gas each week to work, I am not going to be able to make any extra trips outside of being on the road for work. I can stop on my way home to do my own shopping, so do not want to become someone else's taxi service!

This is another irritant on an already full week that has included becoming involved in situations that are work-related that began innocently, but ended up involving way too many people who actually had no reason to be "copied" in on my original message. Rather than just getting a simple response, we had to do what I call the "whip," sending email messages from one office to another to another. All that does is create too many cooks in the kitchen, each one of whom tries to improve the original recipe. By the time we were all finished, it wasn't worth the time or the effort we all gave to the issue!!

The bottom line is that I've done the face plant into the wall. I'm done for the day and it's only 9 am. I'm going to soak in the tub for a while, take a couple more aspirins for the body aches and pains, as well as what seems to be a fever, and plan on a nap for early afternoon. Some days, it really does not pay to get out of bed, and today is one of those days.