It makes sense that if there’s a day when everything happens at once, it would be a Monday. As I was stressing through the day, thinking about audits and shopping and plumbing and such, it occurred to me that next week will only be three days long. That’s assuming I don’t work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I’m pretty sure about Day, but I don’t think I can get away with Eve. Not the whole Eve day, anyway.

By the time I got through with the payroll tonight a little before ten o’clock, the morning seemed like a sweet, distant memory. It wasn’t that sweet, though. I had a bad night, and I don’t know if it was because of worry about the various obstacles I face getting through the week, or just another bad night. But a bad night means a bad morning. At the time I thought that would be the hardest part of my day. Ha.

It started innocently enough. The Boss suggested that we deal with the employees’ year-end bonuses today. I was all for that, because I’m an employee and I’m getting one. At first he told me to give everyone five percent more than they got last year, but I saw that some people got $200 last year, and $210 seemed kind of cheap. So I lobbied for something more, and we settled on $225, and appropriate increases for some of the others, too. I didn’t say anything about my own bonus, so I guess I’ll be satisfied with five percent. It’s better than nothing (because it’s more than nothing).

But that meant that I had to do an entire extra payroll run, on top of the regular payroll. Yeah, I talked myself into doing twice as much work, and it’s probably the most tedious work I do in any given week. I spent my whole afternoon and most of the night doing something that doesn’t hold my interest and makes me feel like I’m doing the most menial work imaginable (and yet still somehow deserving of a bonus). It might have been easier to work that late doing something interesting and/or meaningful, but that wasn’t an option. I have to get the payroll out tomorrow, before the auditor gets here, so I had to get it done. And I did.

But oh, was it painful. I didn’t take the kind of breaks I’d take on a normal day, to preserve my back, and I can really feel it tonight. I skipped two or three meals and didn’t eat anything until about nine tonight, when I heated a spicy bean burrito and ate it on the fly. I worked hard enough that I shouldn’t have the same trouble getting to sleep tonight, but it doesn’t always work out that way when you eat a spicy bean burrito at nine. I’m just glad I told the auditor not to show up before 1:00 pm, because I’m pretty sure I’ll be ready by then. I’ve left some house cleaning to do tomorrow before he gets here, but I’m not going to overdo it. I don’t think I could.