You Know It's Been a Bad Day When . . .

• You have to wear a hat and mittens to walk your kid to school. In April.
• You spend much of your morning waiting around for a guy to come pick up the mattress you're donating.
• One of the first things your husband says to you when he gets home from work is, "Hey. I have a zit there right now, too."
• When he arrives home from work, you are lying face-down across the bed and you say, "I want to run away from home." AND YOU MEAN IT.
• You beg your husband to take the children to piano lessons and while they're gone you get into the tub with a glass of wine, five snack-size Twizzlers from your kids' Easter basket, and the phone. You are still there when they return.
• You slam a door so hard that the framed black and white photo you took in college falls off the wall and into the toilet.
• Your daughter outright refuses to get in the car after playing on the playground after school, and later runs away from you while you're talking to her for the eleven thousandth time in the last week, so you calmly tell her that it's a problem that you're going to solve together. The first solution you offer is that you will buy her a leash and put it on her every day when she comes out of school until you feel comfortable trusting her to listen. AND YOU'RE NOT REALLY KIDDING.
• You go to the library after the kids go to bed, trying to re-stock the kid's books for the next week, and they make the "The library is now closing announcement." You hurry to the check-out counter, where your card is denied because you have fines totaling more than $10.00.
• Things on the agenda for tomorrow include: Write large check to contractor; stay out of house for entire day because of lead dust; take child to therapist; re-wash load of laundry you forgot about which now smells terrible; wait in vain for exploratory freelance emails to be returned.