Hello? Is This Thing On?

Sometime around the mid-way point in the day, my Cheerful Teaching Assistant suddenly perked up.  I could tell that she was all a-tingle with the joy of discovery.  She was the most alert looking person in the room.  The only one really awake, if you want the truth.  Two weeks of Maine Educational Assessments and the joy that is Daylight Savings Time have taken their toll.   If I weren't so utterly terrified of the imminent invasion of the walking dead, I'd say we looked like zombies.  

But, I won't say that because we weren't looking so good at that point.  I don't want to offend our future Zombie Overlords.

Where was I?  Oh, that's right.  The Cheerful Teaching Assistant.  Having reached some sort of epiphany, she was too excited to keep it to herself.  She was fair to bustin' with the need to let us know what she'd figured out.  She leaped from her chair and cried:

Ohmigod!!!  I know why I've been oversleeping and late to work all week!  And why my hair looks like this!  We set the clocks ahead this past weekend!  I've been getting up at the "old" time!  Can you believe it?  That's what it is, all right!

She sat down with an expectant sort of look on her face, just waiting for the room to erupt in applause or for us to at least all make some sort of "oh, now I see" kinds of noises.  I was too stunned to speak.

I have been complaining in one form or another about this very phenomenon for four days straight.  I have, in the most literal sense, whined non-stop about having to leave for work in the dark and how I don't know what time it is anymore.  I have blamed any and all government agencies for this clock-busting rule and even spent an hour of my life that I will never get back explaining how I spent a different hour of my life that I'll never get back trying to reset the clock in my truck.

How did she miss that?  How did anyone miss that?  People I see only in passing once every blue moon know about my feelings on this matter and what it is doing to my life.  My staff are with me all the time, for hours at a stretch.  This is inconceivable!

I think it is time to accept it.  They are starting to tune me out.  I have gone on and on.  And on.  And then on some more.  At some point, and I'm guessing it was several months ago, the "mute" button was pressed.  I am a big, talking head.  My mouth moves and only when it looks like I might be saying something teacherly and job related does anything register.  After hours and hours of listening to me blather on about my shoes, my thoughts on oranges and whether or not that weird mole on my neck is actually an infected spider bite, they've all taken to higher and quieter ground.

Which is a problem since I really wanted some input on that spider bite situation.  I heard about some girl who got bitten by a spider and it laid eggs in her nose and they hatched while she was at the prom.  And then she went insane.  

You can see where "tuning out" might become something of a self-defense mechanism for those in my world...

To salve my wounded ego and to celebrate the fact that time no longer has meaning, I have declared tonight, "Waffles For Dinner" night and whipped up a nice batch of crispy, waffly goodness in the Cinderella waffle iron.  I gave the Big, Fluffy Kitty a few extra treats for being such a good listener and will spend the remainder of the evening spinning the pretty Shetland/silk blend that I started last weekend.  This is good.  

And tomorrow, I plan to tell everyone alllllll about it.

SA