I WAS FINE UNTIL ...

I arrive at school this morning around the same time I always do, right at 7:00 a.m.  Used to being the first and only person in my far wing of the building, I mosey over to my classroom, arms completely loaded with my backpack, a box with a metal frame for the inside of a file cabinet, and a heavy bag laden with books for my library.

It's unusually dark out as a bad weather front is moving in.  (Less than an hour later it will be pouring outside.)  Trying to determine what items will have to be removed for agility, I juggle everything until I concede that there is no way I will ever be mistaken for an acrobat nor a contortionist.  Finally, I just put some stuff down so I can grab my room key and unlock the door.

Of course, today is the day the key doesn't want to fit.  I need to violently jiggle the key and the handle together, magically hitting the "just let the fucker open before I have to kick the fucking door in" mode.  To make matters that much worse, my backpack gets caught on a power cord in my room, and my brand new laptop takes a nosedive off my desk into oblivion.  The thing still works, but I'm not going to lie: I seriously believed it might be dead. Nope. Like Timex, the damn thing keeps ticking.

I head toward the front of the room to write the day's agenda on the board, the board that is right near the open classroom door with the sucky lock.  The moment my back is turned toward the far wall, I hear a booming but benevolent voice behind me ... and jump damn-near out of my skin.  It is the superintendent, whose office is in the same leg of the hallway mine is.

"Good morning," he chimes loudly.

Jeeeezuschriiiiiist.  Just when I acclimate to being alone in the building, I practically shit myself at the unexpected company.  I reach up and grab for my own throat, instinctively sensing a near-heart attack.  When I finally re-catch my breath, I say to him, "You scared me."  Yes, I almost say, "You scared the fucking shit right outta me," but he is the superintendent, after all.

He chuckles a bit.  "How are you this morning?" he asks me.

"Well," I say, trying to calm down my blood pressure and heart rate, "I was fine until a second ago."

My day continued on pretty much the same from there.

Lesson to be learned:  Do not assume you are the first person to arrive at work.  It may well scare the shit right outta you and put an incredible stink into the rest of your otherwise uneventful day.