I can tell you why I don't like Mondays.

I love The Boomtown Rats. They totally rock. I love that I still have that album on vinyl and it is my life’s ambition to own a turn table again. I love that on some Monday mornings the song “I Don’t Like Mondays” pops into my head. It’s sort of a tossup between that and “Manic Monday” by The Bangles. Then of course there is “Monday Monday” by The Mammas and The Poppas; “Blue Monday” by New Order; “New Moon on Monday” by Duran Duran, and of course, “Monday Morning” by Fleetwood Mac. I realized today why there are so many Monday songs: Mondays suck.

This morning I woke up at 3:30am. I would like to blame Henry the Cat, but he was nowhere to be found. I believe it was one of those fabulous pre-menopausal night time hot flashes that make all of us forty-somethings so freakin happy to be alive. I actually had to get out of bed and put my hair up. I seriously thought of cutting it off right then and there, but I was too tired. So then, body up and hair up, next is mind. I started thinking about the lessons I was going to be teaching today; wondering if the office had printed the Arthur Miller essay I wanted my 11th graders to read but probably didn't; that the senior Valentine Dance was Friday and I needed to call a babysitter; what I needed to buy at the grocery store and I was out of almond milk. Or did I just think I was out of almond milk? Seriously, sometimes I think I am out of something and keep buying it until I have a stock pile of it. I tend to do that with apple juice. Sometimes I have four large Trader Joe’s Organic Apple juice bottles under my stove and then all of a sudden I am totally out because I got used to stock piling it and could have sworn I had one last apple juice, but nope. I look at the clock and its 4am. Rats.

Then Henry the cat realizes I am awake. Oh freakin goody. I need to cut his nails and contemplate the wonderful idea of having him declawed but just couldn’t. I wonder where the spray bottle is because he has decided he wants me out of bed. Now. Stupid cat.

I wrap my toes up in my comforter and go back to thinking about almond milk. Then, I think about my bank account and hope I have stock piled almond milk. Now I am totally up. Start thinking about finances or rather lack of finances…student loans…hmmmm….going to have to pay those back. Yes, so super smart to go to USC and spend a fortune to become a freakin teacher. Rats.

At 5am I finally get out of bed as I smell the robust coffee wafting up the stairs to wake me. I am still in love with my programmable coffee maker. He has coffee waiting for me every morning, with just a touch of cinnamon in it. I love him. I should name him. Bob. If it's really good coffee, perhaps I will call him Robert. Or better, Roberto, when it's Columbian coffee.

Usually that, or rather Bob, helps. But not today. I think I actually fell back to sleep at 4:55am. So, now I am super duper tired. The Boomtown Rats song “I Hate Mondays” floats into my head and I use that as my status update, wondering how many will get the reference. All of my favorite women do. I get dressed; get my kids up while feigning happiness and alertness as I scoot them downstairs. Couch, “Transformers” cartoon, Super Hero chocolate milk (like, 33 veggies and fruits in this stuff.) and more coffee for me. I have been under the weather, so I pop my antibiotics, with the understanding I need to eat with them, but can’t seem to get around to that. Unfortunately, I am reminded of this twenty minutes later when I feel as if I am going to hurl. I quickly down some gluten free puffed rice cereal, which is as delicious as it sounds, and I am not feeling it pass. Teetering on my three inch heeled black boots, my babysitter arrives. He is lucky I have had time to cook him breakfast. I am just lucky that I have a babysitter who will arrive at 6:30am and drive my kids to school four mornings a week. Crap, I should pay him more.

The hurly-feeling begins to pass. Armed with “I hate Mondays” still playing rather loudly in my head, I head to the car and head off to work. On 6th, some guy just stops in the middle of the road and just, well, stops. No blinker, no nothing. Just stops. Does he realize there is more than just he on the road? I know it's 6:30am, but come on. I lightly tap my horn, but it gets stuck and blasts for a good solid minute with me smacking it over and over again until it stops. The guy in front flips me off thinking that solid minute was intended for him. I continue on my merry way.

I turn onto Venice and barely notice the two people in the crosswalk and veer, lose control of the car for a moment and then am glad I am not on my morning call to my sister or mom, because I never would have seen them and would have committed vehicular manslaughter before 7am. Yikes. I narrowly escape the street lamp and decide this is all Monday related.

I get to school, with Bob Geldof still screaming in my head. I decide I really need to hear the song. I pull up to my computer at my desk and play the song really, really loudly before the newspaper staff rolls in twenty minutes late as usual. I decide Bob needs to be a part of my lesson plan this morning. I decided my hatred of Mondays should be a part of my lesson plan this morning. I quickly Google “I Hate Mondays” and the story of Brenda Spencer who shot up a school in 1979 and when asked why, part of her response was “I don’t like Mondays”.

As each class came in, after diligently copying down their vocabulary words for the week, moaning and complaining that I give too much homework and commenting on the really cute boots I was wearing, they would get out their journals and I would ask them to write down how their Monday was going so far. Just as I sat down on top of a desk with the first class, as the journal write began and The Boomtown Rats were blaring from my computer just the way they used to blare when I was my students’ age; just then, my brand-new-bought-on-sale-pants split right up the crotch.

Thank goodness I was wearing undies.

The day went steadily downhill from there.

I should have had a vocab list for my day. Headache, slacker, misogynist, technology malfunction, inaudible teaching, sexist, listening skills, ignore, darning, mending, miscreants, Tylenol, sugar, Starbursts, chocolate, disregard, distain, disrespect, detention. And finally, home, couch, kids.

I promised myself I would write about this today and so I have, goal accomplished and now I am done. Nothing terrible or tragic, just frustrating and annoying. Same shit, different Monday.

My Monday is now over, kids safely snuggled into their beds and there is a bubble bath with my name on it. Goodnight Bob. Thanks for spending the day with me. You shall be forever related to my Mondays as well as my coffee.

Seriously, tomorrow I need a better theme song. I should stick to Madonna.