Val, on the Business End of a Sound Thwarting

I am exhausted from the constant thwarting that plagued me all day.

It's not easy being a thwartee. The forces of the universe that conspired against me today, or my thwarters, as I unaffectionately think of them, were:

--the nonworking automated prescription refill answering service at my pharmacy

--the hermetically sealed pack of index cards, from which I needed only two (one for my prescription numbers so I could call them in to a live person on my plan time) that could survive the apocalypse, a honey badger attack, and a mob of teachers at a Last Index Cards on Earth sale

--the cell phone I forgot to charge last night that made me turn it off all day to save the battery

--my usually helpful Pony, who had spirited my red teacher bag out to the Tahoe YESTERDAY when I took a day off, so that I panicked this morning when it turned up missing at the time we were ready to leave

--the city cop in a white SUV parked at the middle of a 100-foot section of 20 mph roadway, who forced me to actually drive 20 mph for 100 feet

--the stack of science fair display boards on top of my classroom cabinet that refused to defy the law of gravity and cascaded onto my head as I was trying to sort out one specific board using a yardstick

--the one line of The Pony's science project that I needed to retrieve from his computer drive in order to submit his entry into the local junior college science fair, which printed in a room far, far away, as my printer was not set up on his drive, and I had no time to add it

--the sweet little girl with a breakfast tray  in her hand, not in my class, who wanted to enter the science fair, who timidly knocked on my door to run her idea past me, apologizing for taking my time, which was down to two minutes before first bell with a bathroom break on the horizon

--the eleven students missing from my afternoon class who really needed to take advantage of our day in the computer lab to practice for the End of Course test that pretty much determines whether I am worthy enough to teach

--the stack of six classes of yesterday's assignment and four classes of today's assignment that needed grading before I left the building to mail the science fair entries, stop for gas, pick up prescriptions, do the weekly shopping, and pick up my 44 oz. Diet Coke

--the National Enquirer that The Pony put in my cart that had the top half-inch of the middle third of the cover chewed off as if by a rat, requiring me to step back from setting out my items on the conveyor to exchange it with an undamaged one, much to the sighs and chagrin of the undoubtedly also-thwarted lady behind me in line

Yes, this thwartee has been thwarted to a pulp today. And now I'm going to stop writing right in the middle of my thwartedness and save the rest, the obscure movie-people references, until tomorrow.

Because I can. The thwartee becomes the thwarter. Bwah ha ha!