Bah Humbug!

"BAH, HUMBUG!" ----Ebenezer Scrooge

Last week, I was a Christmas lunatic, dancing around in holiday glee with candy canes coming out of my ears. This week, I have done a complete 180. It appears that I was far too exuberant with my holiday cheer. The forces of nature have thus conspired to take me down a notch.Only, I didn't come down a NOTCH. Instead, I went from ecstatic to downright grinchtastic.

It started with the eggnog. I love eggnog! Well, not EGGNOG eggnog. Rather, fat-free eggnog. Which, I guess technically isn't really eggnog but rather eggnog-flavored-skim milk-with-some-kind-of-thickening-agent-mixed-in. Put that way, it sounds positively disgusting, but it's actually DEEEEE-licious! Plus, it's only available around the holidays. So on Sunday night, I picked up a festive half gallon for myself.

I didn't actually get a chance to pour myself a glass of the DEEEE-licous fake eggnog until Tuesday night. That's when I discovered that the carton had a tiny hole in the bottom. I did not notice this on Sunday night. I sure noticed it on Tuesday, though! Because every square inch of my refrigerator was covered in eggnog-flavored-skim-milk-with-some-kind-of thickening-agent-mixed-in. It took me about an hour to clean up.

So Wednesday, on my way home from work, I picked up another carton. This time, I inspected the carton thoroughly before taking it home. No holes whatsoever. I open the carton as soon as I got home and poured myself a tall glass of holiday cheer. Not. It had gone sour. Know what bad milk tastes like? It's exponentially worse with eggnog flavor and thickening agent thrown in. It's downright puke-a-licious! It took me about 4 hours to get the taste out of my mouth.

Then, there was my crapulous week at work. Normally, the population of Cape Cod decreases in December when the snow-birds drive south for the winter. Not this year. This year, they are all sticking around. It's busier now than it was in July! And to accommodate all the extra appointments, the scheduling team has been getting creative. Like scheduling appointments right through my lunch break three days this week! WTF? I mean, you have to manually override the scheduling program to do this, so how does somebody NOT notice I don't get a chance to eat not one, not two, but THREE days in one week? (Don't worry, I DID get to eat. But still!)

At the end of the week, I was tying up loose ends and looking forward to next week's schedule to plan ahead. On Tuesday, we are having a department holiday party in place of our usual monthly staff meeting. But on Tuesday, not only was I booked through lunch, I was booked straight through with patients during the staff meeting/party. How the heck do you block off everyone in the entire department except for ONE person? Did I inadvertently tick somebody off? What's the deal? I just sent an email to everyone on the scheduling team to FIX THIS and went home. Geez!

And then there are the parties. Normally, I am all about parties. They are fun. There is food. Everyone has a good time. The thing about parties, though, is that people drink. And sometimes when that happens, people say or do things they normally wouldn't.

I'll be the first to admit that Drunk Heather does some pretty annoying things. Drunk Heather falls down the stairs. Alot. Drunk Heather steals giant sheet cakes. Drunk Heather texts mildly inappropriate picture messages to her friends until they have to turn their cell phones off.

But Drunk Heather is never judgmental. Or condescending. And Drunk Heather never insinuates that others lives are less valid than hers because they are different. Of course, Drunk Heather is sometimes overly sensitive, so maybe sober Heather needs to let it go.

But there's still the lunch fiasco. And the eggnog. So I feel perfectly justified in complaining and making up adjectives to describe my emotional state.

I fully expect to be visited by three ghosts this week. I'll keep you posted.