Workday of the Living Dead

A guy who works in another office on my floor came walking up to me one afternoon last week while I was waiting for the elevator at the end of the day. As I waited for the lift to whisk me from my paying job to my priceless job, he took one look at me and chuckled with knowing grin.

“I know that face – you look beat,” he said. Then he asked, “Do you have kids at home?”

I sighed and then replied, “I do – a 3 ½ year old and a 1-year-old. Is it that obvious?”

I guess it truly is written all over my face that I am working 37.5 hours a week at the office and then spending the remaining 130.5 hours in the week as the harried mom of a toddler and a baby. I try to do my best to hide that I’m a zombie on the inside through liberal doses of caffeine and the generous application of under-eye circle concealer, but apparently the jig is up and I’m not fooling anybody.

This incident happened on a Thursday, and I always feel that is the toughest day of the week. By that point, I have already slogged through three days of getting up earlier than is enjoyable to walk the dog, pack lunches, and get two wiggle worms ready for school before getting myself into the most presentable shape possible and heading out the door. Thursday means that even when you’ve done all that for the fourth day in a row, you still have to do it one more time on Friday. And Thursday has none of the zazz of Friday, when you get a two-day break from your day job at quitting time.

So maybe I looked undead that day because it was Thursday and it’s inevitable. Or maybe it was because my eyes felt dry and I was blinking a lot because I started wearing my contact lenses again (the baby has discovered the unbridled joy of yanking my glasses off my face, making the contacts a defensive move rather than an act of vanity on my part).

After I mentioned that I had two little ones at home, he laughed and said something about how he had once been there himself, and that looking back he’s not sure how he did it. At least I think that’s how the conversation ended – I was so tired by the end that it’s all a little fuzzy. Either way, my new friend was kind and sympathetic in his observations. I didn’t take any offense at what he said – he was speaking the truth, after all – and it turns out he is a fellow traveler in the world of working parentdom; he said what he said in the sprit of camaraderie.