September 15, 2006

How you know it's going to be a bad day by 11:00 a.m.

First, an actual news story from a few weeks ago:

Church Fires Teacher for Being Woman
From Associated Press
August 21, 2006 7:40 AM EDT


WATERTOWN, N.Y. - The minister of a church that dismissed a female Sunday School teacher after adopting what it called a literal interpretation of the Bible says a woman can perform any job - outside of the church.

The First Baptist Church dismissed Mary Lambert on Aug. 9 with a letter explaining that the church had adopted an interpretation that prohibits women from teaching men. She had taught there for 54 years.

The letter quoted the first epistle to Timothy: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."

The Rev. Timothy LaBouf, who also serves on the Watertown City Council, issued a statement saying his stance against women teaching men in Sunday school would not affect his decisions as a city leader in Watertown, where all five members of the council are men but the city manager who runs the city's day-to-day operations is a woman.

"I believe that a woman can perform any job and fulfill any responsibility that she desires to" outside of the church, LaBouf wrote Saturday.

_____________________________________

Wow. Rough day, huh? Which, by the way, doesn't even come close to mine today, which went something like this (list compiled at 11:30 a.m., keep in mind. I've got a whole day to go):

6 a.m. --
drop off of friend at the airport, which necessitated an alarm clock blaring at approximateloy 5:20 a.m. and me dragging my ass out of a warm, snuggly bed and into business clothes less than 5 hours after I went to bed. Ouch. Deliver friend at appropriate terminal, then steer car to the "cell phone waiting lot", where people can park for free while waiting for loved ones to arrive.
6-7 a.m. -- make sleep nest in fold-down backseat of car in airport cell phone waiting lot (in effort to avoid traffic and stay close, geographically, to the location of a 9 a.m. business meeting downtown). Drift off, thinking how lucky I am to have a practical car.
7 a.m. -- wake, shivering, as the heat has seeped out of my car and left it approximately 45 degrees. Crawl to front seat to turn on car, and heat.
7:03 a.m. -- turn key in ignition. Hear "click, click, click" sound, but no engine.
7:04 a.m. -- turn key in ignition. Hear "click, click, click" sound, but no engine.
7:05 a.m. -- turn key in ignition. Hear "click, click, click" sound, but no engine.
7:06 a.m. -- turn key in ignition. Hear "click, click, click" sound, but no engine.
7:07 a.m. -- turn key in ignition. Hear "click, click, click" sound, but no engine. Begin to sweat, then swear.
7:17-7:35 a.m. -- pop hood of car to heighten awareness of my distress, then tour parking lot, asking 5 men in pickup trucks if they have jumper cables. None of them do, prompting me to wonder why in the FUCK they have a pickup truck, if they're clearly commuting to a desk job and don't intend to ever haul anything, carry tools or have jumpercables for damsels in distress! Also ask a couple old ladies, one girl my age, and one middle-aged man in a suit with two cell phones attached to his head who spoke something like French. No luck.
7:40 -- call everyone in the area I know (three people) and discover they're all already on their way to work.
7:50 -- get a call from one friend, who gives me the name of a tow-truck company, who I google on my Blackberry and call. They'll be out in 10 minutes.
7:55 -- hear "tap tap" on window, and find two men in navy blue jumpsuits standing outside my window, peering at my battery and asking if I need a jump.
7:56 -- "Well, yeah." (Duh.)
7:57 -- tow truck arrives, prompting two jumpsuited men to say "you called a tow truck?"
7:58 --
"Well, yeah." (Assholes.)
8:00 a.m. -- cables hooked up, key turned, ignition catches. Car is running!
8:01 a.m. -- go over to say thank you to tow truck guy, who cuts me short when he hands me a bill for $62.50. $62.50 for approximately four minutes of light work! Resigned, hand over the money, sign life away in ink, and make mental note to get into the tow truck business as a second career. They make bank.

I won't go into details of my other escapades this morning (spilling of hot latte on inner thigh, 20 dollar parking tab when I go to the meeting for which I paid 62.50 to wait and kill my car, and using a Porta-Potty due to real restrooms being "down for maintenance"), but it's been a long morning.

Reeeeaally looking forward to the weekend. Hope yours is good. And if you happen to have any happy karma vibes to spare, you know where to send 'em.

4 comments:

jali said...

I think you need a hug, Mamma!

Those tow guys kill me.

How was the weekend?

Chuckles said...

Rough.

Trebuchet said...

Thank you for the sympathy, but I recognize I'm a huge whiner. I'm over it.

Weekend was good. I'll give you the deets shortly...

ShadowAngel said...

Oh, you poor thing! I'm kind of surprised you had so much trouble finding someone with cables though - I'd probably have to work hard here in Buffalo to find someone *without* cables in their car!

And that fired Sunday school teacher? Excuse me? Last time I checked, most Sunday school teachers are teaching *boys*, not men, even if you believe that bullcrap line of reasoning they were using.