Starting with a bang

Today did not start well.

Aside from the normal frustrations of a small boy who refuses to get dressed; and a cat who wants to stand three centimetres in front of where I want to put my feet, miaowing; and a kitchen covered in unexplained sticky patches; and breadcrumbs scattered the length and breadth of every surface and unpleasantly glued down on aforementioned sticky patches; and a heap of massive cardboard boxes obstructing the hallway; and yet another load of laundry to get in before heading to work; and not enough butter in the butter-dish soft enough to spread for my toast; aside from all of that, my day started on an even worse footing than normal.

I was unable to get at the toaster because of the box of beer in front of it. So I picked up said box of beer to move it. Unfortunately I hadn't had any coffee yet, and was therefore perhaps not quite at my brightest and best. I therefore failed to notice that the cardboard was not 100% intact at one end of the box. And thus it was that one of the bottles of beer made a bid for freedom, plunging straight down onto the tiled kitchen floor.

Fortunately it didn't break. Instead, the shock of landing bottom-first on the floor blew the lid off the bottle, fountaining beer spectacularly upwards. I stood in a spreading puddle of beer and didn't swear. That was perhaps the highlight of the event.

Beer sprayed onto the walls.

Beer sprayed onto the cupboards.

Beer sprayed onto the cooker, the extractor hood, the window, the sink, the dishwasher and the washing machine.

Beer sprayed into the toaster.

Beer dripped from the ceiling.

Beer also showered all over me. It permeated my shirt, skirt and cardigan. It oozed between my toes. It spattered across my head, dampening my hair down in an appealing fashion. And since it was already eight o'clock, once BigBear and I had mopped up the worst of the beer, there was no time to shower or change before heading to work.

So here I am at work, smelling ever so slightly like a brewery. And there I will be outside the school gates later this afternoon, smelling ever so slightly like a brewery. If you meet me there, no, I have not been drinking, though I have most definitely been Having A Bad Day and probably deserve to have been drinking.

I'm now looking forward to this week's newsletter from the headmaster featuring an imprecation to parents that they avoid arriving at school reeking of alcohol...