Monday

Yes, Monday is almost over--but to me it is almost Friday.

I brought this up once but didn't think my imaginary audience was up to the task of grasping my alternate universe. Ready? Here goes:

I work in a factory. This factory has 5 shifts: A (11pm - 7am Mon - Fri), B (7am - 3pm Mon - Fri), C (3pm - 11pm Mon - Fri), D (11pm - 11am Sat & Sun), and E (11am - 11pm Sat - Sun). Some departments also have an F shift (5am - 5pm weekends) and there are some variances but, meh. They don't concern us.

At this factory generally you are either a Monday thru Friday person or a weekender. When I hired in, in 1995, I was told I would be a weekender for life. That turned out to not be true. I could be on straight A shift, aka Midnights, but choose to remain a weekender. I work E shift and Monday & Tuesday C shift. I consider my weekend to be Wednesday, Thursday and Friday since those are my days off. That makes Saturday my Monday and Tuesday my Friday. It's a little muddled there in the middle. I mean, when exactly is my Wednesday? Who cares! I just need to know when my Friday is.

This perverted logic makes perfect sense to me and my co-workers; probably other factory/shift workers get it, too. But absolutely no one else understands. Nor can anyone else in the world keep my work schedule straight. That includes my children. I have worked this particular schedule for many years. I did a stint on Midnights a few years back, but only for 6 months since we have a shift alignment twice a year. But almost every day one child, sometimes both, asks me if I have to work today, or tomorrow, or this weekend. My grandmother, bless her heart, has had this schedule taped up on her refrigerator for years, and has been told repeatedly that it is ALWAYS safe to call me on Wednesdays, yet she invariably calls me on Saturday mornings.

I will celebrate my 15th anniversary at the hole (as in hell hole) on February 2nd and grandma still calls me on Saturdays. Even bff likes to call me at 4:45 on Tuesdays. Sometimes. The best part of that 6 month stint on Midnights was talking to her every morning on my way home while she was commuting to work. Well, that and drinking heavily on Saturday afternoons and listening to UT football games on yahoo and stomping and whooping it up and embarassing my kids and then taking a nap.

So, I just burned 3 days vacation and it rained so we didn't get to go to the drag races; we went to the wrong salvage yard and they were closed so we didn't get to take advantage of the 50% off sale at the Pick and Pull; and I ran out of wine. Crappy weekend all the way around. But tomorrow is Friday, the only day I have to work this week, and then it's a 3 day weekend! Hurray!!