My 24 Hours of Epic Fails

EPIC FAIL 1

I started a new job yesterday and my boss and co-workers are AMAZING! I am so happy about them! My start time was to be 9 a.m. At 8:15 a.m. I triumphantly bid my sons and nanny adieu and walked into the pouring rain to get in the car.

I only had my purse and a notebook in my hands so it made it easy to reach in to grab my keys. Just to paint you a picture of the enormity of my handbag, I have fit a Chihuahua and/or a box of wine in it, along with everything else I normally tote around. I felt my wallet…no. Felt my checkbook…no. Felt the panty liners that kept sticking to everything I would take out of my purse to use. I would have to embarrassingly shove it back in before anyone saw. That obviously wasn’t my keys. My reaching became more and more frantic. I slammed the notebook on the trunk and sprinted back inside.

“No, no, no….not today!” I cried out, leaping over a mud puddle, skipping the first step then the next 2.

I flung open the door and blurted out, “I can’t find my keys, oh my God, I can’t find my keys!”

I dropped to the ground along with Louis and again desperately moved the articles around in my bag. When this was proving too slow, I grabbed the bottom and just dumped it out on the floor. The nanny and my sons were already in action, looking in the kitchen, the living room, quizzing me of my movement the night before. Nothing turned up. I frantically picked up my phone and dialed my husband.

“I can’t find my keys. I have to be there in 40 minutes. I can’t find my keys!” I cried into the phone.

Chi-Chi was now barking uncontrollably, clearly agitated by all the commotion. I swung around and in the shrillest voice I’ve ever heard myself utter, screamed, “SHUT UP!” Chi-chi complied, understanding I meant business. Oh my God, I was turning into Joan Crawford.

“I can leave now,” my husband responded, ignoring the fact I probably just screamed in his ear.

“You won’t be here in time,” I responded. “Just come home to take P to camp!”

I turned to my nanny while still on the phone and demanded the unthinkable. “I am so sorry to ask this of you but can you take me to work?”

“Sure, how far is it?” she asked hesitantly. Her tone and body language was more along the lines of “what the fuck lady? I watch your kids, not chauffeur your ass around.”

Once in the car, it dawned on me that my nanny is from the town I am from and has about as much experience as Archie Bunker when driving in traffic as well as downtown. Working in the 15th largest city in the U.S. we have our share of traffic. My route also happens to have one of the most dangerous passes in the state. Did I also mention the torrential downpour taking place?

Half way there, I turned to her and asked, “your not gonna quit are you?”

“No…no….of course not,” she said as her eyes were bugging out while she was hunched over the steering wheel, desperately rubbing the fog away from the windshield.

EPIC FAIL 2

Later that day when my husband picked me up from work, he warned me.

“Don’t be alarmed but P got sun burnt.”

“WHAT?!?!”

“It’s just a burn,” my husband responded.

“How bad is it?”

“I’ll let you decide,” he responded. From that response, I was certain he would be in the burn unit later that night.

When we got home, I hollered upstairs.

“Hey P, how was camp?”

“Awesome!” He yelled down.

10 minutes later I heard him walking through the hallway. I was in the kitchen cooking dinner. I turned to greet him and dropped the colander from my hands in shock.

“JESUS!” I yelled.

“It’s not that bad,” he said dismissively.

“Not that bad? Not that bad? This is the worst I have EVER seen!”

“Really mom? The worst you’ve ever seen?”

“Yeah, the worst with you. You literally are so burnt I see purple blotches.”

In my frantic race to get to work, I had not put any sun block on him. Obviously my husband didn’t either and he made no attempt at camp to apply it despite being in his backpack.

If you don’t know this about me and my oldest son, we are some of the whitest people you’ve ever seen. Earlier that day, while in the HR manager’s office, I met one of my new co-workers. We had met during my interviews but both had forgotten each other. Upon this second meeting he told me the following story:

“You know,” he began. “I was asked later that day after your interview, what do you remember most about her. And do you know what I said?”

I cringed as I nodded, knowing I was going to have to take it like a little bitch and hear what was most memorable about me.

“I said,” he paused to collect himself as what he was about to say was so funny, his whole body began to convulse in laughter. Dear God, kill me now.

“I said I remember her being really white.”

The HR manager was willing him to stop talking. Being the lady I am, I smiled sweetly and said, “I couldn’t agree with you more. How my father had olive skin, jet black hair and brown eyes, I will never know.”