Freeballin

I was so sure I was organized last night. My car went into the shop on Friday, right before the hail (it seems to have survived just fine - less hail up the street) and the shop was closed for the weekend, so I was going to be carless Monday morning, a day I couldn't take off because I was giving a full day of training and was on call. Pooteewheet had taken Eryn to urgent care, and then the ER, to check out a fever and stomach ache, and then follow up on strep (per LissyJo's diagnosis), appendicitis, and a white blood cell count of 26,000 (way over normal). Don't get freaked out because I left them to their own devices in the health care system for 8 hours - Eryn wasn't looking anywhere near the edge of death - it was a tactical decision. Instead, I mowed the yard, watered and fed the dog, picked up sticks all over the yard from the hail storm, walked to the grocery store and bought sherbet and cookie dough ice cream (and fruit) for the girls when they returned home, fixed Eryn's Mother's Day wind chime, cleaned the garage, cleaned up all my bikes, partially to make more space in the garage, and then set about getting ready for the next day prepping a bike, prepping a spare for the bike by patching a spare tube (twice), cleaning out panniers that hadn't been used since I was 15, ironing clothes, ironing a sweater vest in case the clothes became wrinkled in the pack, setting out socks, t-shirt, tire irons, lock, belt, blackberry, bike shorts, t-shirt, tennis shoes, things necessary to carry to work for training...on and on.

Until I got to work. Where, after I had showered and returning home seemed like an impossible option, I realized I didn't have any underwear. Fuck all. So for a good forty-five minutes this morning, until Pooteewheet could crawl out of bed, wake up Eryn, and lug in a pair of briefs, I was freeballin' it - refusing coffee, refusing breakfast at the corporate cafeteria with Ming, refusing really to move from my cube until the Brief Squad showed up at the back door (they drive Focuses) and delivered some support for aging tackle. At which point I thought everything was great - pop into the bathroom, get undressed, get redressed. The danger of having to go commando during eight hours of speaking, trying not to think sexy thoughts while talking about enterprise data storage in front of half a dozen employees (and really...is that possible?), was past. Until one of my friends brought my badge to my cube because it had fallen off in the stall while I was changing. Fortunately...that seems like a pretty benign event if you don't know any back story and I don't think he reads my blog.

The first commute day always seems to turn out this way. Last year I forgot my shirt and Pooteewheet and Eryn got rear ended while bringing me something to wear. This year it's my underwear. I need a dresser at work.