Grumps

I'm supposed to be doing a mountain of grading, but I'm grumpy, and it is never fair to grade when grumpy. The fact that a barrage of student idiocy and rudeness is the cause of the grumpiness is beside the point. I just can't do it. It's not fair.

Besides, I've already grumped at my children, grumped at my husband, and grumped at the falling snow. I spent an inordinate amount of time in the grocery store today. When I left the house at 7 am, the forecast said something vaguely about two inches of snow on green areas. By the time I reached my mom's house, following a swimming adventure with Frick and Frack in which Frick was all about swimming and Frack just wanted to scream instead of dipping his face in the water (sometimes I wonder which one is the "special needs" one... perhaps that is something for another post), around 9:30 am, we were expecting 6-10 inches. Its never good when it snows in Atlanta. Only I didn't know we were now expecting a blizzard. I just didn't think twice when my mom asked me to run out and grab groceries for her, because she's been sick and even two inches of snow can be a problem on her dirt road. When I got home after meeting JoeyAndyDad at Chuck E. Cheese (where the boys had a marvelous time, despite the crowd because we got there later than planned) and discovered the new predictions, back to the grocery I went. There is a huge difference between "might have to entertain the boys with snow for a few hours" and "may be stuck in house with boys for two days". (Since we live in the city, I doubt we'll be stuck here longer than that, even if it doesn't immediately warm up.)

Whenever the "s-word" hits the forecasts, people around here go nuts. I went a little nuts myself, buying things like chips and crackers I wouldn't normally buy, and more drinks than usual, but I felt I was kinda prepping for a snow party. The people around me seemed to be stocking up for a major blizzard, as if they expected to be snowed in for the week. Actually, more like for the month. A week's worth of groceries on a Sunday wouldn't be that unusual, except for the huge number of people buying them; but these folks were going crazy. It also was putting off my nice, comfy schedule. This should have been a wonderfully relaxing day: a morning swim, a visit to Grandma's, a fun early lunch at Chuck E. Cheese, then home for an afternoon of cleaning the basement and enthusiastic boy-squishing, followed by a bit of grading after bedtime. Instead, I spent a lot of time crunched with crazed idiots who thought the world was ending, or would if they didn't have a month's supply of toilet paper right now.

I could do a whole blog just on adventures I have in grocery stores.

And instead of getting to read lovely stories about snow to my beautiful boys, I spent an hour trying to solve problems for students who, it turned out, weren't interested in solutions. That makes me really, really grumpy, especially when those students sent me emails of desperation complete with TMI excuses for why their work wasn't getting done, in cranky tones- as if it was my fault they hadn't bothered to do anything earlier in the week when solutions could have been easier to implement. And I still have three weeks' of discussions and two sets of exams staring at me. If I stuck an A on each and every one of them and tossed them back, not one of those students would care. In fact, they'd probably be happy. Who needs to learn stuff, anyway? How depressing is that?

Outside, the snow keeps falling, which means tomorrow's Field Day will likely be cancelled. In fact, I'm likely to have a snow day with my little guys, so I made sure I had hot chocolate with marshmallows on hand. If I don't get to grading soon, my grumpy butt will be stuck grading exams instead of playing in the snow. And that would just suck.