Mondays suck.
Pure and simple.
Who wants to go back to work after two glorious days off?
Unless you’re a teacher who loves her job.
Oh, who am I kidding? Mondays still suck.
However, there are worse things than having to go back to work each Monday.
It’s far worse to go back to work on a Monday when you’ve run over a duck en-route.
Actually, make that two ducks.
Today started off like any ordinary Monday.
After sleeping a scant three hours (thank you Excedrin Migraine right before bed), I actually woke up refreshed (thank you vegan diet).
Although it was raining, I did not mind. I live in Florida where the weather is crazy.
I dropped Rooster off at school and made my way to my own school. My car was loaded with class books, quizzes, and an assortment of other “teacher” things.
I carefully navigated the roads, turning off of the four-lane road onto the smaller, two-lane street.
I wasn’t going fast, mind you. I recently learned a lesson in that department (we won’t go into that today…or ever).
Because of the rain and clouds, it was dark enough outside to warrant the use of headlights.
After making my turn, I sped up, as drivers customarily do.
And then I saw them.
Three large, adult ducks.
The friendly kind that roam around apartments and lakes.
Three adult ducks were standing in the middle of the road.
One had situated itself squarely on the center lines dividing the lanes.
The other two were in the center of my lane.
Traffic going in the other direction was backed up.
My car was going a whopping 15 mph.
I could not slow down in time, given the slick asphalt.
Oh.
My.
Gosh.
I felt the car hit those poor ducks.
It bumped, bumped, bumped as my car drove over them.
Sigh.
My stomach felt sick.
I heard a car honk and looked in my rear view mirror to see if anyone had stopped to help the ducks.
I could see that nobody had.
It was raining hard.
What I saw next made me cry.
One of the ducks had not died on impact and was trying to walk around. All I could see was one of his wings flapping around.
Did I tell you that I cried?
I did.
I felt incredibly sad, even though I knew that there was nothing I could have done. To try to avert hitting them would have meant that I would have either plowed into the cars in the turning lane beside me or driven straight into the ditch that lined the other side of the road.
Life, in that moment, sucked worse than the fact that it was a Monday and I was returning to work after two glorious days off.
Sigh.
Despite that, I had to go on with life.
First and second periods went well. I had spent most of Sunday prepping my lesson plans.
Fourth period got a little rocky.
One of my students cried.
Although he is very sensitive and cries frequently, it’s still difficult to watch.
Then, I found out I had cafeteria duty.
I loathe cafeteria duty.
And then my 9th graders came in.
This was going to be ugly.
They had done poorly on last week’s vocabulary test, and they had projects to turn in that I could already see weren’t completed properly.
They back-talked and questioned my knowledge about teaching.
Sigh.
Finally it was time to go home.
I was relieved.
Although as a Christian, I do not believe in omens, I’ve gotta tell you that I think that hitting a duck (or two) on your way to work on a Monday is not a good sign of things to come.
If this ever happens to you, do yourself a huge favor and drive yourself right back home.
Crawl back into your jammies and jump into bed.
Pull the covers over your head and stay there until Tuesday.
That’s when the ducks go back into hiding.
Trust me on this.
I would never lie to you.
**Disclaimer: This does not apply to Oregon Ducks who put their own lives at risk when encountering Auburn Tigers**
Filed under: This-n-That | Tagged: Monday | 6 Comments »
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