Thursday afternoon at work, the emails from my colleagues started — one after another declaring that, due to the snowstorm, they would be working from home on Friday. Having not seen any kind of French Toast alert on Universal Hub, I figured my workmates were exaggerating.
Plus, I figured, I’m tough, I can drive in any weather. For Pete’s sake, I learned to drive in January, during a typical Cleveland snow-filled winter. Lemme tell ya, if we didn’t make a complete stop at a stop sign, our teacher (a nun) made us get out, kneel in front of the sign and apologize. In the snow. My dad had the task of taking me out on the weekends, and taught me to parallel park around snow mounds at Great Northern mall.
The other thing is, I don’t want my boss to think I’m lazy. Maybe that’s something akin to having a work ethic, but seriously: when you tell someone you’re working at home, they think you’re sitting around doing f**k all.
But when both my manager and his manager decided to stay at home on Friday, I thought I’d look like a tosser/brown-noser if I still went to work.
Friday morning, I still got up at the usual time. Richard, my hardy Yorkshireman, packed up and shoved off for his commute up to Beverly. He even stayed at work all day (ooh-aye luv, not s’bad). And had no problem commuting home or securing a parking spot on our street. Lucky bastard.
Meanwhile, I did practically f**k all. That is, until around 4:30, when I figured out that I had accidentally lost a set of keys. Panicking, I decided to go back to the place I’d last had them, about 2 miles from my house. Not wanting to drive, or lose my ace parking space, I walked.
Heading over, I was striding, optimistic, thinking in general I’m a good person, and the universe would be good to me.
But I didn’t find the keys. I even dug around in the snow.
The walk home was long. I was nervous and dejected about the lost-key ramifications. I was confused as to how it could happen (is this early stage Alzheimer’s?). I was angry with all the shitheads who were warm in their homes and hadn’t bothered to clean their sidewalks – which, by 6pm, were really messy. And I was getting very wet from all the snow.
When I got home, Richard offered to run a hot bath, took another look round in case for the keys, then sat beside me and watched stupid telly the rest of the evening. The practical and perfect husband that he is, he tells me this is not forgetfulness. It’s just an accident.
24 hours later and I still feel bad about those damn keys. I went back and looked again today – by car, this time. And of course, after clearing off my car and the snow around it, someone else had taken my parking space by the time I returned home — probably because I wasn’t enough of a wanker to put a piece of furniture out there to save it.
But one very nice thing has happened: Richard went out and brought home some chocolate fudge cake. Ta, luv. You’re the best.
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