I've Been a Wreck

Sorry I've been MIA for so long. It's been one of those weeks...

On Thursday, I awoke with a cough, and of course ignored it and went to work anyway. As the day progressed, my head began to throb like I don't remember it ever doing in the past and I felt feverish. By the time I was ready to admit I was unable to continue teaching for the day, it was too late to get coverage so I had to just finish out the day. I actually laid my head down on the desk and begged my students to not cause too much trouble and I would leave them alone. It sort of worked, but they weren't doing me too many favors.

One of my brighter students decided this opportunity was a good time to attack my teaching, asking "If you don't like kids, why are you a teacher?" I tried to reiterate that I was very ill and to please not hold my lack of effort against me, but the student wasn't having it and yammered on anyway. I already felt like shit and now I felt like the worst teacher ever; life couldn't get worse.

To make matters worse, I had to chaperone the basketball game after school. I tried to get out of it, knowing full well no one would be willing to take over a last minute volunteer job, so I resigned myself to being miserable for a few more hours. I was put on duty with a fellow teacher who I have avoided in the past since ey's so awkward. I admitted that I had a horrendous headache to em at the beginning of our conversation, but ey still talked to me incessantly about eir autistic kid (it struck me then that, ohmguh, this person has autism, too!) and the teacher's peculiar diet. I couldn't have been more disinterested, but I tried to be polite even though I felt like dying.

After three hours, sweet escape finally came. I got in my car, my head still throbbing, and started to cry as I was driving home. I tried to remember the last time teaching had reduced me to tears: though it breaks me down on a regular basis, I do not let it make me cry. As I was already declaring it the worst day ever, while driving on the freeway, a car a few cars in front of me hit the brakes hard, sending all the subsequent cars to do the same. There were a lot of near misses, except for me, who successfully hit the big truck in front of me. We had been going less than the speed limit since the traffic was mildly congested and I did hit the brakes, so as it was happening, I never worried for my safety. My exact thought was "crap my insurance." Immediately after it happened, I almost laughed. Go figure that on my worst day of the year, this would happen, too. Carlos, the person whose truck I hit, was extremely friendly. He had such a huge truck that I didn't even leave a mark on his vehicle. His main concern was that I was okay, which was amazing, because the last thing I needed in my state was to get chewed out by a stranger for hitting em. Though Carlos's truck was unharmed, mine sustained a good deal of damage, with one of my headlights broken and my bumper banged in. I was able to drive it away from the scene and brought it to the my dealership. They told me they don't do body work there and recommended that I leave it there and not drive it anymore in case I was doing any damage. Shea came to pick me up and I bought some medicine and knocked myself out by 7 at night.

The next day I took the day off of work because a) I couldn't drive there and b) I still felt like death. I spent most of the day sleeping in between calls to the insurance company. I was told it might be a while to get everything settled, but thankfully the company had assessed my car before the day ended. The bad news was that they declared it totaled. I objected to the term, but I guess that's insurance speak for determining that they'd rather give me the worth of the car than risk fixing it for a higher cost.

For the rest of the weekend, I flirted with the idea of being so sick that I just die, but even that didn't pull through for me.

On Monday, I received a quote of about $8000 for my "totaled" car, which was more than a fair amount, so that left me excited. I'm driving a rental car now, which is expensive, but necessary to get to work until I buy another car, an idea which terrifies me. I don't want a new car, I want that old car. I intended to drive my kids around in that car or, failing that, conceive them in that car anyway. Why did you take my car yet spare me?! Why???