bad day

Please note the time of this post.

When my alarm clock went off this morning -- well, yesterday, now -- I had this premonition of dread. I was actually half an hour late to work because I lay there thinking, "I really wish I could stay home today...this isn't going to be good."

First, the copier on my floor, which also serves as the network printer for most of our employees there, crashed and wouldn't do anything. (The copier itself is another story I can't get into right now.) The circuit board is fried and has to be replaced, which will take a few days because our machine is so old and obsolete that they have to search for this particular part. (Why don't you just replace the machine? you might be asking. That's the story I can't get into. Apparently, according to the decision makers, the thing works fine. ARGH. But I digress.)

So now we have to go downstairs to copy (to a machine that is actually even older and suckier than ours...but I'm *told* that one works just fine, too!) and we're all sharing a printer way the hell the other side of the floor.

Then the switchboard short-circuited. (Apparently dumping a glass of tea on it isn't good for it. Who knew? No -- it wasn't me.) Anyway, so we had to use a regular office phone which can only handle two lines. This, while the press department was preparing for a major story. Fun!

Then the internet went down for a while. There was some other stuff I can't get into. Let's just say it was a thoroughly aggravating day.

Then we had our staff holiday party. Fortunately I had an excuse for leaving early. I won a gift certificate to Border's, so I guess the day wasn't a total loss.

So I came home and eventually made my way into bed. Had trouble falling asleep.

Woke up at 12:58 a.m. to a loud crash.

The Christmas tree was on the floor.

Now...I was in bed, and there aren't any witnesses. (If there are, they're not talking.) So it would be wrong of me to accuse a certain pair of four-footed feline roommates. But the likelihood that this was a cat-related disaster remains high, I'd say.

I actually had tied the tree to the table this year. (It's fake.) I lashed it down good. Even if the cats did have a paw in the catastrophe, it's still partly the tree's fault: the base broke and it could no longer stand up. Not salvageable.

So, I tossed the cats in the bathroom because I really didn't want their "help" with this particular project. "Meow! Meow! Meaaaaaaooouuuuuuwwwww!" Swell.

Then I spent the next hour undecorating my tree, just a mere 10 days before Christmas. I'd say that's a little earlier than I normally get around to taking it down. Fortunately, I did not lose any ornaments, which I consider a miracle.

Have you ever tried to take the lights off a tree that can't stand up? Fun, fun!

Now that I am wide awake and angry, I'm going to hop in the shower, go back to bed and try not to think about everything I have to do tomorrow on four hours of sleep.