adulting is hard

At 8:30 this morning, I poured the contents of my basket onto the CVS conveyor belt. Two bottles of Drano. A four-pack of Diet Red Bull. Advil. Travel deodorant. Static Guard. Dry shampoo. Sunblock. Baby powder. Two Star Wars light saber tooth brushes. Terrible "strawberry pizazz GMO FD&C Red No. 4" kids toothpaste. And a pack of Starburst.

There was an old dude in line behind me and he started laughing and said, "Looks like you've got all your bases covered." Indeed. I am ready for the Apocalypse. And by Apocalypse I mean, A Weekday Morning. Then he told me my toes looked very pretty but that I needed a manicure. Hey buddy, are you offerin'?

The reason I was buying Drano at 8:30 in the morning is because I cannot stand another day of showering in 3 inches of dirty water, and there is no other time for me to obtain said product. Oh and the static guard is because my legs are so prickly that they create their own static force field when I wear skirts. Shave? C'mon son. Be real. Just buy Static Guard, obviously. All of the rest of that shit should be self-explanatory.

I just... I don't understand when LIFE is supposed to get done. I feel like life itself is a full-time job. But the problem is, I already have a full time job. So now I have two full-time jobs. But LIFE seems to operate on the same general schedule as the rest of the world, aka, during normal business hours. Therein lies the problem. Someone open a chain of doctor/dentist/veterinarian/dry cleaner/car repair/coffee/grocery store/salons that operate from 5 PM to 9 AM and you will make ONE MILLION dollars. I swear.

The other day my car died while I was driving 80 mph on the freeway. It was scary as hell. This probably could have been avoided if I'd taken it in 2 days earlier when it started acting funny, but is that supposed to happen before or after the Drano run?

I live about 30 miles from work, and the commute takes between 35 and 75 minutes, depending on traffic. There is a train station about a mile from my home, and the train station downtown is literally across the street from my office. So people (understandably) ask me ALL THE DAMN TIME if I take the train, and when I say "No, not often," they ask, dumbfounded, "Why not???"

Here's why: There's an 8am train, and a 10am train. (P.S. - TRAIN SCHEDULER PERSONS, W-T-F? Would a 9am train be so much to ask?) Now, in order to get on the 8am train, I would have to get my kids to school by 7:40 am at the latest (and I mean like, signed, sealed, delivered: 5 hugs, 3 kisses, 2 doleful stares through the glass, rinse, repeat, the forgotten lunch/bedding/Elsa costume/karate gi/ballet slippers/spirit week paraphernalia, etcetera). Props to those of you who do this on the regular but this is damn near impossible for us. My kids would sleep until 7:30/8am if I let them. I don't know about you, but I would rather eat knives than wake them. I still have to do it almost daily (especially Jack), but I do my best to maximize the minutes of sleep for all parties involved. It works out better for everyone in the long run. When Jack starts kindergarten he has to be there by 7:58 and I'm already dreading the logistics. So, yeah, 8am train? Not so much.

10am train? Strangely, my employer frowns upon people showing up to work at 10:45 in the morning. Brunch, anyone?

But, okay, just for shits and giggles, lets assume I can get my ass on the 8am train. This gets me to work by 8:45. I'm golden. Except then I have to pick up two kids at two different schools by 6pm. I have to take the 4:27 train to get there on time. This means I have to walk out of my Big Law office by 4:17pm. Unless I somehow develop the super power of invisibility, that's just not gonna fly.

This is a common theme. The kids' daycare used to be open from 8:30 to 5. That made it literally impossible to work an 8 hour day. The daycare providers always said, with a nice steaming hot serving of Mom Guilt, "Well, that's a very long day for a young child to be away from his mother. We certainly wouldn't want to draw it out any longer." Certainly not. (And I don't mean to be glib. It does super suck for my poor littles to be at daycare/school 10 hours a day. But I can feel like an asshole about this on my very own, I don't need your help, thankyouverymuch.) Please, wise sage, share with me the employer that's cool with me working a 6.5 hour day?

So. Enemy number 1: Capitalism. The Labor Party. America's unflagging work ethic. You name it.

But you know what else is ruining my life? The schools. Now, again, please don't take this the wrong way. You spend more time with my children than I do. I respect and admire the work that you do. You're saints in apple-appliqued sweaters. But dude. C'mon. Help a sister out.

This may come as a shock to you, but I am not shelling out X amount of dollars every month in ransom tuition to send my kids to preschool so that I can stay home and bake healthy snacks and make crafts in between back to back pilates classes, and come up with weekly ways to celebrate my precious little snowflakes and the teachers that help shape their wittow bwains. I LOVE my crazy critters and I APPRECIATE you teachers, I really, truly do. But it's ALWAYS something. And it can't even be the same damn thing for both kids. Tuesday is Crazy Hair Day for Colby and Pajama Day for Jack and then on Friday I'm in charge of bringing gluten-free donuts and steamed nut-milk lattes for the entire staff. Next week its fresh-picked flowers from the garden. (Does a sprig of regurgitated rosemary count?) The week after it's coffee for Emma and Katie, decaf tea for Lindsey, and cold-pressed juice for Katrina, who's morally opposed to Starbucks.

If only Ryan Gosling were Room Mom.

Of course, if you can't participate in a meaningful manner, you can always cop out by throwing money at it, which is often the route I take. So here, I have created a little equation that represents the real cost of preschool:

Annual Tuition + [($X asinine mandatory "donation" every goddamn week I swear to god) x (1.5 mom guilt multiplier) x (52 weeks)] + (Additional 10% if you failed to volunteer at the Book Faire) + $50 if your blueberry muffins were store-bought = Actual Cost

[Who ever said girls aren't good at math?! That's some Beautiful Mind shit right there!]

You know what makes it all better though?

Amazon Prime.