Going Bananas

It's been a struggle to get to work on time these past two weeks (prior to that I had the luxury of summer vacation), but I'm getting closer and closer to the mark every day. Good thing, too, since the kids come back Monday, and today we had our Open House at 9:00 am, when students and parents can come check out the school and find out who their teacher will be.

Since I've only met a couple of parents and kids so far, and I barely even know the staff and the principal, I wanted to be there, good and ready well before 9:00 am. I'd picked out linen pants and a matching blouse, an outfit that satisfied my three diverse criteria: look respectable; fit my bloated, early but unannounced pregnant body; and give me enough freedom of movement to be able to shove boxes and furniture around after the Open House ended. No mean feat given that the weight I had already gained from stress this past year has put a lot of stress on my wardrobe - the bloat and the Goodyear Blimps breasts make it near-impossible.

I got up when the alarm went off (almost), glumly ate breakfast (food and I only seem to get along between the hours of 11 am and 4 pm, but avoiding it has BAAAAD consequences), and was almost ready to leave when I realized I needed to do a little tidying up the house in preparation for the cleaners.* I had left some bananas on the counter in a bag to ripen for banana bread.

Well, they were ripe all right. I picked up the bag by its handles and swung it toward the sink. The base of sodden paper sack disintegrated and six liquefied banana remnants hurtled toward the floor, where they landed with a loud, sloppy smack, splattering banana goo all over my bare feet AND my cream-colored, newly-ironed, comfortable yet presentable outfit of choice.

I think my cursing and wailing could be heard on the very banana plantations where the fateful fruit had grown.

*Hiring a cleaning service is one of the only intelligent things we've done since we decided to mix chronic illness with TTC and early pregnancy. But we do subscribe to that weird middle-class guilt thing where you have to CLEAN the house before the cleaners come. Oh well.