Typical

Not much news going on the past few days in the life of Katie (it’s moments like this I wish I had a catchier name, like Pi. “The Life of Pi” has such a better ring to it than “The Life of Katie” – someone should coin that phrase – just sayin’).

I wake up at 6:30, hide under my covers until 6:45 when that moment of panic indisputably hits me and I leap to the ceiling like my bed has fleas (you know the one – where you look at your phone and a string of swear words run through your head like closed captioning while you run frantically out your bedroom door.) For most people it happens once a semester or so, maybe a couple times a year. I’ve gotten into the nasty habit of starting every day with that delightful adrenaline rush. I pitter-patter into the bathroom and pray that my hair looks reasonable enough to get away with not showering, but of course it never does so I jump around the bathroom pulling off my pjs and jump into the shower. I have no idea what I do in the middle of the night but apparently teasing my hair with a comb is involved.

Another string of curse words run through my head as I jump out of the shower and leave a water trail from the bathroom to my room.

Post-shower I spend a solid 10 minutes staring blank-minded into my closet wondering how I acquired the wardrobe comparable to that of a middle school substitute teacher and wondering where all my cute “I’m in my early 20’s and I have the best body I’ll ever have!” clothes went. Or why spandex, Nike pullovers and running shoes are not considered ‘business casual’.
Certainly I would be a better speech-language pathologist if I were properly attired to, at any moment, chase down a screaming 3 year old down a hallway. It’s happened on multiple occasions. To save time what I should do at the beginning of the semester is sit the poor toddler down and explain that he’s met his worst nightmare - I’ve completed 4 marathons and that, no matter how hard he move his widdle chubby bottom, he may have been able to out-run his last SLP, but he will never out-run me. I called them ‘runners’ until one little nugget put a whole new meaning on that word.

I check the time, more profanity is thought as I pull on whatever is not wrinkled and covered in dog hair.

Somehow, no matter how much time I spend zoned out in the shower or staring at my closet as I crack jokes to myself about how many different pairs of Banana Republic slacks I own in various shades of grey and black, I always head downstairs at 7:07 without even meaning to.

At the bottom of the stairs is the judgment zone, a.k.a where Nanc scurries around the kitchen pouring my coffee and making my sunny-side up egg (side note: I’ve never liked sunny-side up eggs. The runny white stuff really irks me and the yolk part looks too much like my orange juice…it’s just a lot of orange on the plate for 7 am. But for some reason I’ve eaten a sunny-side up egg every morning since I’ve been home – and I’m not quite sure why I haven’t mentioned it before now.)

Anyway,  judgment zone. If my outfit is acceptable to those who are not my mother and my dog, I get, “cute.” Or if it’s REALLY good – like my white jeans/boots/scarf combo on a day I tried really hard– I get, “really cute. Cute cute cute.”

But if it’s not (like the time I wore my UGG slippers and brown pants or the time I tried to sneak out my door wearing my favorite long-sleeved cotton hiking) I get a twice over, a 5 second deathly silent pause, and something along the lines of:

“Oh, I have the PERFECT sweater for you!”
"Did the shoes I bought you yesterday not fit?"
“Now what I would do is wear this black and white scarf instead of that purple one”
“Didn’t I iron your black slacks?”

or just a flat-out, “Katie that looks like a night shirt.”

And even if I starkly refuse saying my outfit is fine or that I don’t want to change or even if I lie and say my other shoes are in the car (sorry mom – there were no spare shoes in the car. I really did wear my UGG slippers that day), without a doubt as I’m bent over gagging down my sunny-side up egg my mom will emerge from the basement looking like a lady who works on commission at Macy’s with various articles of clothing – ranging from scarves with tassles and little furry balls to sweaters with unique buttons and all sorts of random shit sewn to it, to pants in sizes that wouldn’t fit me even if I gave up my love of beer and wine and anything with at least a cup of sugar. And, more importantly, nothing that I would ever wear even if I were a size 2 and desperate.

One shirt she suggested I put on to break my long-sleeved cotton pullover streak (I was on my third consecutive day of wearing some variation of light, medium, and dark grey horizontal stripes) I deemed her, “witch shirt.” It looked like it was taken directly out of the closet of Morticia Addams. But, alas, it was, “very expensive.”

Somewhere between 7:18 and 7:22 my eyes catch the microwave clock and bug out of my head at how 12 to 15 minutes passed by already and I have to leave in 20 minutes and my hair is still drying in a twisty-turban.

More vulgarity as I run up the stairs with Luna at my ankles.

7:33 I have a, “welp. This is as good as it’s gonna get” metacognitive moment of staring at the frump-tastic girl in the mirror. She had so much potential 50 minutes ago.

At 7:36 (ish) I go and start my car because for some unknown reason St. Louis has recently decided its Alaska and if I don’t warm up my car my toes go numb on my commute (unless I’m wearing my UGG slippers.)

I come back inside and lean against the counter, staring at the refrigerator casually sipping my coffee and ogling at the fact that I could have easily slept in for 15 more minutes and still have had pleeenty of time to get ready. I make a mental note for tomorrow.

And there you have it. A morning in the life. Sometime I’ll tell you about my 8-3 day (I’ll be sure to go into great detail about just how many times I get sneezed on in an hour and then another post can be about my night (actually, that doesn’t need a post. Here you go: Run-library-dinner-desert-sign language-sleep.)

On a completely unrelated note, if anyone can explain to me why I had a dream last night that I put Preparation H on my toothbrush and proceeded to brush my teeth, I would be greatly appreciative.