it all started with a crummy cup of coffee
I got a bag of coffee beans from a local roaster in my CSA box last week. I was really looking forward to trying them and yesterday morning I ground them up and brewed my morning medicine, that which fuels me to actually get out of the house each morning.
I poured my cup and took a sip. It sucked. It was bitter and tasted like the stuff that sits on burners all day at the 7-11. I was upset. And it all went downhill from there.
My kid has been a real pain in the ass lately about getting ready for school. He dawdles and whines about how he doesn’t want to go. As far as I can ascertain, there’s no real problem causing him anxiety, no bullies or anything, he just doesn’t want to go because, “all we do is LEARN.”
So he was pulling out all the stops yesterday. Whining. Stomping his feet. Trying to slap my hands away when I dragged him out of bed. Screaming back when I told him for the sixth time that he needed to eat his breakfast. Far too much for me to deal with on a half cup of shite coffee.
While I was explaining to him that, “What do you mean why do you need to put your socks on? You need to put your socks on because WE. NEED. TO. LEAVE!” the sleeping husband peeled open an eye a little and mumbled, “What’s his problem?”
I stomped out of the house with the baby and put him on the bus. When I got home I started working on getting the husband up and out of bed in a reasonable amount of time. Around 8:20, I told him to get out of bed for the third time, and he snapped at me, “I KNOW! I HAVE A FUCKING EXAM TODAY! LEAVE ME ALONE!”
I hated both of them in that moment. I couldn’t believe that I had to endure both of them getting pissed at me for trying to get them off to where they needed to go, especially when they just had to go to school while I had to go to work and school and deal with situations at my job that, frankly, aren’t always that fun or easy to deal with. Plus, the nagging anxiety that my husband is graduating from college in the midst of the shittiest economy ever and it’s possible that the thin financial string that we’ve been hanging by the past few years will have to sustain us even longer, provided nothing catastrophic happens like me getting laid off.
And the people who were so terrible at their jobs that our economy is now in the state that it is not only are guaranteed to keep their jobs, they get millions of dollars in bonuses.
That thought set me off and I went on this misanthropic spiral thinking about all of the utterly shitty people in the world and how they go on to create shittier copies of themselves and how I wished I had some superpower where I could drop 2 liter bottles of Coke on the toes of people I hated without consequence. And it’s not that we need to start regulating the number of children that people have but there does need to be some kind of social shift in the face of biological imperatives that it’s okay to not want to have kids but goddammit why do some of the most vocal proponents of the childfree movement have to be such a-holes and it’s not that I’m a total nihilist because I’ve felt something real when I’ve been in the presence of my family.
Oh and THEN I read this article that pissed me off even more. I mean, it’s not that it’s hard to draw parallels between Pittsburgh and Detroit but they’re two totally different places and what works in one place won’t necessarily work in the other. And I must have been looking for things to make me angry because then I went and read the comments which just made it worse because I hate people and all of their stupid “thoughts” and “opinions.”
I don’t know. Maybe I should go back on anti-depressants.
Or spike my coffee once I get better beans.
I was pissy throughout the day. I think my little family is at its worst when we convince ourselves that we’re not in this together. That we’re the only ones bogged down in our struggles and the other two members simply don’t understand what we go through day to day. I don’t know how to fix that.
March 20th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Ummmmm….. yes.
March 20th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
@Sweetney, yes, I should go back on anti-depressants? 😉
March 20th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
I’m too scared to comment. 🙂 OK, not really, but I thought I’d try to make you smile.
March 20th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
@Joy, heh, thanks!
March 20th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
My last post was about Trinity being less than motivated about doing anything. Judging by the comments, it is a phase… but it would be nice if there were an easy fix like say… bribery or something. It worked for AIG right? (don’t e-slap me, heh)
March 20th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
@Jennifer Chernoff, yeah. I remember being the same way he was and I’m sure it doesn’t help that the husband and I both whine about doing school stuff. We need to graduate before he drops out of first grade! 😉
March 21st, 2009 at 8:33 am
I have definitely uttered the same words your son has, recently.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:04 pm
im glad im not the only one that borderline hates my family members in the morning. especially boys that are doing their damnest to miss the g-d bus goddammit.