A little backstory: I don’t wake up to a traditional alarm clock. Never had and don’t believe I ever will. That beep beep beep doesn’t penetrate. Seriously, it could be a ten-wheeler backing into my house and I won’t wake up for the beep. Therefore, I use my cellphone as an alarm, since it’s plugged into the charger next to my bed anyway. I set it to “wind chimes” and have no problem waking up to kill it.

(Something you may not know about me—I despise wind chimes. Despise isn’t even a strong enough word, but my Rodale’s Synonym Finder is inexplicably out of reach. My neighborhood is a dead zone for wind chimes. Bad things happen to them here.)

For some reason known only in the depths of my cellphone’s diabolical chip, no wind chimes this morning. I woke up when my husband started rummaging through his dresser drawers at 6:45, four+-letter words spewing forth. He was running late because my coming downstairs at 6:15 is his signal to stop nodding off in his chair, suck down his coffee and get his butt in gear. Because my wind chimes were silent, I ran late, which made him run late, which made me run even later. Let’s just say both school drop-offs were handled in my pajamas while my brain cried out for caffeine.

Once that was accomplished, I had to drive my husband’s King Quad all the way back to the shop because it died. By the time I stop at Dunkin Donuts and drive all the way to the shop, get the machine unloaded, talk to the guy, then drive back from the middle of nowhere, so desperate to pee I’d be driving with my legs crossed if I could reach the pedals that way and then find a Walmart and hobble through the parking lot with sobbing kidneys only to panic because it’s a Supercenter and laid out differently and I can’t find the restrooms and then stand in line for twenty minutes to buy a pack of gum because I won’t pee and run in a commercial establishment and then drive the rest of the way home, it’s almost a three-hour round trip.

Now I’m decompressing—and sucking down more coffee. On a positive note, while driving a plot came to me for a follow-up Intrigue, which is cool. One of the big things about subbing to a category line is knowing what you’re going to throw at them next if the first one goes anywhere. On an even more positive note, I still remembered it when I got home.

Now, with twelve minutes left til noon, it’s time to grab some lunch and see what chaos the rest of the day brings.