I Wanna Be Like Fred

I'm telling you, Fred Flintstone had it made. At 5:00pm the foreman yanked on the bird's tail, the bird squawked and Fred gave a hearty "Yabba-Dabba-Dooo!" slid down the brontosaurus' back, sailed off the tail and landed right in his car. He got home just as fast as his two feet would take him, and then was greeted by his loving wife and adorable daughter, just before getting creamed by the family pet dinosaur. Sheer Prehistoric bliss.

I want to be like Fred.

I want to know what it's like to hear the quittin' time! bell at 5pm and know that I'm really done for the day. I have to imagine it's a pretty awesome thing, leaving work in the late afternoon and just going home, instead of starting what amounts to be a whole new days-worth of activities.

My day, post-quitting time, included running to the bank, running to teach a lesson, teaching said lesson, running to parent-teacher conferences, standing around for what seemed to be an eternity in six different lines (over two hours lost on that semi-annual parental chore), running home to devour some most excellent leftovers, and then finishing up the rehearsal discs I had said no-can-do to yesterday.

And as delightful as all these activities weres (snort), and as happy as I was to hear from all her teachers that TeenTuna is both pleasant and happy in class (suck-up), and as pleased as I was to hear from her gym teacher (of all teachers!) that TeenTuna was too good and too smart for middle school boys (preach on, brother!), I would have rather been mown-over by a pet Mastadon than lose two-plus hours of precious going-home time while I stood in in line to reap the benefits of maybe 15 minutes of conversation, 3 of which were academically oriented, and the other 12 were comprised of lovely but empty platitudes.

With less than a half-hour left in my day, I should be grading tests and pulling together materials for tomorrow. But I think it's time to move Monday to the past-tense department. To seriously mix my metaphors, Fiddle-Dee-Dee, tomorrow is another day. And today is officially over.

Yabba-Dabba-Doo!