Ready

OK.  Let's see where we are with all this:

Nose so red and bright that even complete strangers see fit to comment upon it?

Check.

Every single pocket filled with either fresh or partially used tissues?

Check.

Just sneezed up something that may or may not be sentient and which probably will demand that I send it to community college in eighteen years?

Check.

Become bleary and weary enough to actually share with the school psychological examiner my theory on the correlation between sneezing and peeing in middle aged women?

Check.

Well, it certainly seems that I am good to go with the cold symptoms.  I could probably have lived the rest of my life without ever having to catalogue those again.  On the other hand, there are one or two items that were checked off the list today of a more positive nature.  

I managed to pick up a movie for the kids tomorrow so that they will be handily distracted from the fact that they are still in school on the Friday before vacation.  I set aside one or two miserable worksheets for those kids who still choose to make trouble on a day when they could just sit and watch a movie if they made more of an effort to not get caught.  I checked in with everyone who might miss me while I am out of the classroom for the day and made sure they knew that I'd just be over at the high school teaching the Safety Procedures class.  

I also made certain that they knew to not call me there because I wouldn't much care what was going on in my absence.  There isn't anything I can do about it from all the way over at the high school anyway.  They'll just have to deal with it.  

I didn't manage to finish up my insurance billing forms, though.  But since I am already backlogged six months on that little task, it would have been foolish for anyone to expect me to come through.  I find cockeyed optimists to be somewhat tiresome, don't you?

The only thing left for me to do is to pack up the sock-in-progress so I'll have it for those moments when the Safety Procedures class gets dull.  We have already covered most of the material and part of the class involves a written test.  I get to sit there and pretend that I am proctoring while that's going on and what Fake Proctor doesn't look more official with some knitting in hand?  

After that, it's all over.  Sheepie will be on vacation.  The kid part is done and now I just have to spend a day teaching adults who are just as invested in getting the heck out of there as I am.  I think I can manage that, cold or no cold.  If you need me, I'll be here on my couch.  I'm easy to find.  Just follow the Whoo-Hoo sounds.

Failing that, you can use the light from my bright red nose as a beacon...

SA