"George is getting UPSET!"--G. Costanza

"Forget the story. I can't think about some crappy story. My life sucks too much."--Jordan Catalano, My So-Called Life

"My life sucks, and I hate everyone."--Me, yesterday at 3:00

This week had an auspicious beginning on Sunday when I sold my entertainment center on craigslist and didn't get murdered by the guy when he came to my house to pick it up.

But then things took a turn, and I'm now in the midst of the Worst Week Ever--and it's only Tuesday.

On Monday morning, first day back from summer vacation, my cheap wristwatch that I'd bought for my France trip decided to start chiming its alarm randomly at 6:20. I had to get out of bed to find the watch to turn it off, but somehow all I did was make it go off every 5 minutes until 7:05 when I finally figured out how to make it stop completely. Until it went off again this morning.

Then I went to school. While I normally love going back to school, I found out last May that I'd be teaching 80ish students this year (as opposed to the 63 I taught last year), so my usual enthusiasm has been somewhat lacking as of late. I thought things couldn't get worse, but then yesterday I found out that I also have something called Student Center duty this year, which means I have to cover classes for absent teachers during one of my free periods every day. All of this means that I have just one planning period (just for this semester) but am also teaching an extra class's worth of students (again, just for this semester). It's also my turn to do attendance for 9th and 10th grade every morning all year AND instead of the normal 2 lunch duties a year, for some reason, I have 3. And because my football duty falls on the biggest game of the year (6000 fans expected + Bobby Bowden ???), I'm going to be stationed at the gate that's in a cow pasture. (Not even kidding.) And the air conditioning is broken in the English/History office, and it's 100 degrees out. Sigh.

Fortunately, today was slightly less painful, especially since one of my new students decided not to take honors after all. Here's how that went--
Ray (my buddy and scheduling guru): "Hey, you just lost one of your honors students."
Me: "YES! This is the greatest day of my life."
Ray: "That's sad."
Sad, but true. The title of my autobiography.

Then I went to the post office where I had the misfortune of being behind a woman who wanted to send a package to Uruguay and wanted to know prices. Here's how that went--
USPS woman: "Uruguay? I don't even know what region that's in."
Customer: "It's in South America."
USPS: "Is that in Mexico?"
**more back and forth inanities for 10 minutes in which it is revealed that one can send a box no more than 78 inches in total girth to Uruguay for $56.**
USPS: "Or you could do a flat rate box for $55 anywhere outside of the U.S."
Customer: "Oh! So anywhere in the world for $55?"
USPS: "No, anywhere outside of the U.S."

But none of that even matters right now because today I went to Publix and discovered that Publix no longer carries my Pepperidge Farm Oatmeal 45-calorie/slice sandwich bread. I flipped out. I went up to Customer Service and found Jeff, the guy in charge of special orders, and said something to the effect of, "My sandwich bread is missing. This is the 3rd product in the last month that Publix has discontinued. What the heck am I supposed to eat?!?" So Jeff checks the computer and tells me that they do indeed have Pepperidge Farm oatmeal bread, but it's 100 calories/slice. So NO, that is not the same thing. He said he would "look into it" and call me later this week. The last time Jeff called me, it was bad news bears, so I'm not optimistic.

Speaking of which, Delta still hasn't sent me the $100 voucher. And the Director of Customer Service still hasn't responded to my email about the form letter I received.

My friend Heather wanted me to mention that I shouldn't complain because her life sucks, too, since she also has a work overload and has to coach Cross Country and doesn't have her own classroom and some idiot ran over her mailbox and left a piece of his car on her lawn, but it's my blog, and I can kvetch if I want to.

But I'm done for today and feel better for having aired my grievances. Happy early Festivus, everyone!