And how was your day?

It has been, I’m afraid, one of those days. In fact, it has been so one-of-those-days-ish that I am reluctant to blog about it, lest I jinx the apparent calm of the end of one of those days. I would not be at all surprised were the laptop to burst into flames, for instance.
The morning started with the usual panic involved in getting the boys out the door and to the bus – despite the fact that I tried to explain to all involved that this morning, of all mornings, I needed to concentrate on getting me ready, because I had a meeting at 9:15, followed by substitute teaching at 10, followed by a presentation to another class at noon.
Despite the panic, I managed to get myself out the door and into the car – which was parked around the corner, since there’s no parking on our street on Monday mornings – by 8:45, leaving myself loads of time to travel to school.
Except the car wouldn’t start.

With less than half an hour to get to work, I couldn’t take the Metro. I haven’t timed the public transit journey yet, so even if the meeting was a wash, I still couldn’t take the chance of being late for the 10 o’clock class – bad enough to be late for your own class, but pretty disastrous to be late for a sub job. So I trotted over to the cab stand outside the Metro station, and hopped into a cab.
And hopped out again, since I had no cash.
Thankfully, there’s an ATM inside the Metro station, so I ran downstairs, took out $40 – at least I would have cash on hand for coffee once I got to school – and ran back up to the cab stand.
Which was now deserted.
Except for one guy, obviously waiting for a cab.
So he got the one that showed up.
Eventually, another cab did show up, and I was finally on my way. Just a quick hop up the Decarie expressway, and I’d only be about ten minutes late for my meeting. I called and left a message for my meeting-mate, and sat back and relaxed.
Obviously, this was a mistake.
Traffic on Decarie – and on the highway from which there is no exit that we took to get to the Decarie – was stopped. Not slow, stopped. It took so long to get to the top that the final fare for the cab ride – which, you will remember, I chose instead of a $2.50 Metro journey – was $33.
I got to school with five minutes to spare to get to my sub class.
OK, the worst is over. Here I am, in class, getting to painfully and slowly extract comments from students about Hamlet! Yay! Oh, that Claudius. What a jerk. Like he even tried to stop Gertrude when she picked up the poisoned wine…
But I digress.
Class ended, I rushed downstairs to get the projector, rushed back upstairs, and made my presentation to the next class. Done! Apparently the streak had ended, and all was right with the world.
On my way back to my office, I called Dr. T to rant and rave a little, and to discuss how to get the kids home without my car. Which is when he told me that he had, in fact, decided to take the bus himself this morning, and his car is parked less than a block from mine.
Well, at least I could use his car to go get the kids, after I got home.
I headed back to my office, took care of some business, and had a nice long chat with my officemate, since we rarely get to see each other these days, what with the whole me-not-teaching thing. Then, since I am subbing again tomorrow, I packed up my briefcase and stowed it under my desk, rather than lug it all the way home on the Metro.
Off I sauntered to the Metro station – really, I did saunter. The spring weather was gorgeous this afternoon – warm and impossibly sunny and so on. And, I thought, here’s a perfect opportunity to time the journey, for future reference.
Forty-five minutes later, I was home. Good to know.
Forty-six minutes later, I realized that the key ring on which I keep the key to Dr. T’s car is in my briefcase. Which, if you’ll recall, is safely stowed away under my *&^!@* desk, at work.
After turning the house upside down with the slim but desperate hope that there’s a valet key for the car somewhere (there wasn’t), I tried once more to start my car (it wouldn’t) and headed back to the Metro station to catch the bus that would take me to the other end of Verdun, where the boys’ school is located, rather inconveniently.
When I got to the bus stop, I discovered that in my frantic search for the valet key, I had taken my book out of my purse. Which is why, no doubt, it took the bus about 20 minutes to arrive.
Anyway, the bus finally arrived, on I got, and off we went. I got to the kids’ school just after 5 o’clock. The minute I walked through the door, one of the after-school daycare ladies accosted me because, she says, I didn’t tell them that the boys were supposed to stay at school today, so Colin had taken the bus home.
Thankfully, the bus driver had the presence of mind to realize something was amiss when (1) there was only one brother on the bus and (2) there was no Mummy waiting at the bus stop, so she brought Colin back to school.
So Colin was there, as was his bag, in which was his agenda, in which was the note I had sent with him this morning – along with the one in Robert’s bag, which did get read.
By the time all of this was sorted out, we had missed the bus going back toward home, which meant a 30-minute wait at the bus stop, helpfully whiled away by small-boy-questions like “but why did you leave your keys at school, Mummy?” and “how come the bus isn’t coming yet, Mummy?”
We got home. Dr. T was there. We tried to boost the car. Didn’t work. Called CAA. Had bath. He dealt with CAA (who got the car started, thank whatever malignant deity started this whole thing). He cooked. Drank wine. Day over.
Mondays suck.