The best thing that happened today was a lovely backyard visit at my grandma’s house with Grandma and her sister. Sherm and I hopped in the car –okay, I lifted him in– and we drove way the heck over there to sit in the last rays of evening sun with Grandma J. and Auntie C. What a glorious close to the day.

Otherwise, Tuesday was lame. I’m about to whine about my crappy day, so if you’re not in the mood for a good pout, go read a happier post.

I dropped the speckled pup off at daycare this morning and arrived to work on time. All I needed to do to be ready for my day was print an assignment guide off my computer and head up to the computer lab to kick off the in-class essay I had to assign today. It was critical that the essay be done today because of the timing of the provincial achievement test, which is nine sleeps away. Yes, I’m counting sleeps. It’s like Christmas, but without presents, tasty food, family togetherness, or any joy and good will toward men. Really, it’s nothing like Christmas.

Anyway, the essay had to be completed today. Period. I need time to mark those bad boys and hand them back so the kids can use them to prepare for the provincial exam. I logged into my computer and the file for that course was gone. G-o-n-e. I therefore could not start the assignment I needed to start today. I also could not breathe.

The file in question was my bucket file for the entire course. It was filled with all the notes, assignments, quizzes, tests, and other things I built for grade nine. In short, it was the folder for all my other folders; it holds at least 60 hours of original work. The crisis in the big picture was the loss of my course materials. In the short term, though, I had no way to launch the assignment that absolutely had to be done today.

It was 8:17 am, and I wanted to throw myself off the roof of the main gymnasium. Sigh.

I dashed to the main office in an attempt to find our school’s tech dude. He doesn’t actually start until 9, and my classes start at 8:37, so the panic deepened palpably. I asked our fabulous secretary if she could please, please, please ask him to zing on up to the lab where I would be floundering while waiting for help. Shortly before 9, he arrived. This man, bless his plaid shirt, quickly traced some tech thing I don’t have the first clue about and found my precious file. Somehow, it had been swallowed up by the grade 8 file. Ironic, I know, because I always heard that seven eight nine.

Crisis averted, but I was slightly embarrassed to have my problem solved so easily. I was terrified for the better part of an hour though. It was horrid. Have I mentioned how awesome the tech dude is? Trust me. The best advice I can give other teachers is to be nice to the support staff. Secretaries, custodians, and tech dudes keep the place humming. Thank goodness.

The rest of the day wasn’t too bad, except that obligations over the noon hour meant that I didn’t eat my lunch until 3:30. In and of itself, this isn’t that unusual, and really not that big a deal, but because I was in the computer lab this morning and this afternoon –where food is verboten– I had not eaten breakfast or lunch. By about a quarter to two this afternoon, I was a cranky bear. Like, long clawed, shaggy haired, carcass halitosis, ripping woodland creatures apart for the fun of it cranky.

Well, not quite. I’d definitely had better days, though.

When I finally got home, all I wanted to do was relax a bit before going to see my grandma. After I’d been on the couch only a few minutes, the phone rang in the kitchen. I’ve been expecting a call about some important stuff, so I jumped up and ran toward the ringing.

Unfortunately, I was too busy thinking about dinner and phone conversations to notice the giant tool box that The Electrician left here yesterday when he was helping me with the bathroom renos (yet again). I was 90 percent successful in dodging the tool box at such high speed. Unfortunately, the 10 percent fail was the baby pinky toe on my left foot.

It may never be the same.

I didn’t realize the sad state of my poor pinky toe until my couch let me know. My furniture doesn’t generally say much, but the white leather couch manages to get its point across clearly when it’s covered in blood. How ironic that the first day I wear open-toed shoes is the last day my feet will look nice all summer.

I’m gonna miss that toenail: it was in my top ten favorite toenails.

As Lynyrd Skynyrd says, “Tuesday’s Gone.” Thankfully. I don’t have it in me to do it again.

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