Monday, Monday

I should have known when the alarm didn’t go off that it was going to be one of those days. A phone call from my traveling husband woke me up.

“Aren’t you up yet?” he asked.

“No,” I mumbled sleepily. “What time is it?”

When he told me, I said a quick goodbye and ran to the bathroom. A glance in the mirror told me I shouldn’t have gone to bed with my hair damp. My bangs looked like I had spikes growing out of my forehead. When I was little my mother would give my bangs a spit bath to make them lie down, but I wasn’t that desperate. I turned the water on and splashed it on my face and hair. It didn’t look much better but at least it wasn’t sticking straight out.

I grabbed the clothes I’d worn to church the day before and put them back on. Next I scooped up the basics from my makeup arsenal and threw them in my purse to take with me. I looked with longing at the coffee pot as I ran through the kitchen, pausing only long enough to grab three chocolate chip cookies for breakfast. By the time I arrived at work I’d eaten my cookies, slicked down my bangs (again), and put on some makeup.

After I’d been at work about an hour I took a bathroom break. As I was washing my hands, I looked in the mirror above the sink and promptly burst out laughing. My 3-year-old granddaughter had spent Saturday night with me, and Abby loves to play in my makeup. Obviously she’d taken my blush brush and swiped it through the blue eye shadow. My cheeks were blue!

Later I saw one of my first-period students and asked him why he didn’t tell me.

“I didn’t notice,” he replied.

Another student said she thought it was a bruise and didn’t want to embarrass me by asking how it happened.

This teacher has learned her lessons. Don’t go to bed with my hair damp unless I want to look like a porcupine, when Bill is traveling set two alarms in case one doesn’t go off, and never ever apply makeup without benefit of a lighted mirror and my eyeglasses.