Yes, I work at a state institution but because we get Christmas Eve and the day after Thanksgiving off of work, we don’t get Columbus Day or President’s Day off of work. So, I headed off to the second week of my new job early yesterday morning.

It actually didn’t occur to me that yesterday was a holiday until someone mentioned it. That would explain why traffic was so light on the way to work, even though I didn’t get out of the house until 7:30, when I prefer to leave no later than 7:15. It would also explain why I only had 17 requests to deal with yesterday morning, instead of the normal Monday morning amount. It ended up being the only smooth part of the day.

I finished all of the daily processing before noon and asked for permission to take half a personal day. I had my reasons. Sunday night, I’d thrown a load of laundry into the washer, intending on tossing it into the dryer when I came home from work yesterday evening. But at 2:30 Monday morning, my sinuses were congested thanks to me forgetting to take my allergy meds before bed, and when I went into the kitchen to get some water, I heard the washer running.

“Odd,” I thought, and wondered briefly if JM had stayed up and thrown a load in after mine. But he was out cold on the couch, so I couldn’t ask. I went downstairs to the basement and found everything as I’d left it; a load in the dryer that I’d washed earlier and the empty basket on top. If JM had washed another load, he’d done a good job of hiding the one I’d been drying. So, I opened the washer and discovered my 11:30 load still merrily agitating. The timer indicated it hadn’t even gone into the first spin cycle yet.
Not good.

I stopped the timer and went back to bed, trying to figure out in my still congested stupor how in the hell I was going to manage to deal with it, between a trip to the grocery store, my homework assignment due last night and the homework I want to knock out of the way before next weekend.

“Screw it,” I thought, “I’m too tired to think about it.”

So, the morning’s light workload wasn’t a disappointment at all. I was given permission for my half day of personal time, and I headed home just in time to say goodbye to The Boyfriend as he headed off to the gym and then work. And then I decided to call my dad, just to get his opinion on whether or not I should mess with trying to turn it back on after it ran for a good three hours the night before.

My stepmom answered and sounded a little harried. Turns out my dad wasn’t there; he’d just been taken to the hospital via the rescue squad.

I started to freak out. She told me he was going to be ok; he was just having problems breathing. I asked if I should go up to the hospital and she said no, and that she’d call me later and let me know what was going on.

In an effort to calm my nerves, I attempted to call my mom’s cell phone. I’d been trying to call her for the past two days with no success, since her phone was shut off. I’d emailed her and she hadn’t responded. There’s no landline at my sister’s in SC, so I had no other way to get a hold of her. I called my sister in Ohio and asked if she happened to have my SC brother-in-law’s cell number and surprisingly, she did. I left a message on his voicemail and waited. Mom called me back shortly afterward and I learned that SHE was going to have to see a surgeon this morning for a baseball-sized cyst underneath her arm.

WTF?

If that wasn’t enough, my sis in Ohio called me back a little while later to ask if I’d gotten a hold of our mom. She’d just tried and gotten voicemail again, but she needed to get in touch with our SC sister, because their stepmom (I’m a product of my mom’s second marriage) had also been admitted to the hospital Monday!

So, to the best of my knowledge, everyone is ok. Mom didn’t have to have surgery, Dad called last night and said he’d be going home today (I haven’t talked to him today, but I also haven’t heard differently) and it didn’t sound like the situation with my sisters’ stepmom was very serious.

And the washer? Total goner. Fortunately, I have a backup in the garage and the boys will help The Boyfriend haul it out on Thursday. I can relax, right?

Riiiiight. That’s why when I got to work this morning, my computer died.

Something tells me it’s going to be a long week.

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