I hate Wednesdays. This is what my Wednesdays look like:

7:00am - Wake up. Groan because I’m already tired - yesterday I worked (drove to and from Chilliwack) and taught a night class (Richmond), and there aren’t enough hours between the end of class and the morning alarm to become rested.

7:30am - Hit the road in the Sprite Car for Chilliwack, which I have to arrive at before nine so I can be there to greet my supervisor’s first client of the day. She is invariably ten minutes late and it has fallen to me to be the one present and on time to let them in and keep them busy until she arrives. Note that I live 100 kilometres and a major bridge away from the office. She lives about eight. Great. It’s not even 9am and I’m already resentful.

9:00am - First client of the day. I observe and am impressed but also disheartened by my supervisor’s skillz. Will I ever get this?

10:00am - 12:00pm - More clients, and some supervision from my supervisor.  I am not getting this.

Noon to one: lunch, which is not really a break because we talk shop all the way though. There is this lady on the till at Subway who is a very nice woman but also a slow talker and the line takes forever because she’s cracking stupid jokes and inquiring about everyone’s day. If she were a man she’d have fat uncle pants on, they’re those kind of jokes. When she talks she stops working the till. She never stops talking. My sandwich wilts on the counter waiting for me; we exchange longing glances. Plus, today they screwed up and dumped a bunch of dripping chicken on my bun - for once a staffer was fast, too fast for me to prevent chicken. I ask for a new bun, the girl glares, I feel both angry and embarrassed. I just want my vegan sandwich for god’s sake.

1:00pm - 6:00pm - more clients. By my last client my brain is a pudding, I have no idea what I’m doing, and no idea what the client is doing either. I’m hungry and tired. I will never get this.

6:05pm - Go out to the parking lot to find yet another fucking happy-gram from the local commissionaires of whoever the fuck has nothing better to do with their time than put little yellow papers under my windshield wiper congratulating me for using the club. Maybe I’m a jerk but I find this condescending and incredibly irritating. I don’t need some small town busybody to tell me it’s good that I locked my car. You know what’s not good? Seeing a ticket on your car and experiencing the rush of anxiety because you think you just got a ticket. And then finding out it’s a stupid fucking happy-gram. You know what I’d like to do with that happy-gram? Find the person who put it there and shove it right up their ass. How’s that for happy, motherfucker? Instead I crumple it up and throw it on the ground with what I hope is obvious disgust.

6:30 - 8:00pm - Dinner with my brother. Finally I am enjoying the day. No sense in hitting the highway at this time, and it’s pleasant to share a meal. We gossip about family members and lament the lack of vegan options at Boston Pizza.

8:45pm - In the middle of my drive, exit the highway because for some reason I seriously have to pee, even though I was well trained in toddlerhood to go before I leave the house. My bladder hates me. I hate me. I also hate this traffic, which, ha ha, has not appreciably decreased since the afternoon. Some lu-lu is riding my ass even though I am in the slow lane and doing 110km/hr. I entertain elaborate fantasies of slamming on my brakes and killing us both just for the sheer (though temporary) joy of being right: see what happens when you tailgate, you dipshit? But of course I don’t. Barely.

9:20pm - get home, a full 14 hours after leaving. Discover Husband is not home - that’s for the best, I’m not fit for human company and he should be spared my mood. I always feel guilty when I’m a turd to him, he doesn’t deserve it. Frankly, neither do I, which is why I feel like flinging myself off the building to end this frustration and anger. Instead I take a shower. I hate my shampoo, it smells too smelly. Also, I bought a vegan soap that is so big I can’t hold it in one hand. It’s absurdly huge. I have to manhandle it with both hands to soap up, which is kind of funny… but kind of makes me want to cry too. My frustration tolerance has evaporated.

I know lots of people work longer days, do harder jobs, experience greater stresses. But speaking purely subjectively, Wednesdays just kill me. They are too long, too hard, too tiring. I enter them tired from the late night on Tuesdays, and it’s all downhill from there. There are things I need in order to function like a normal person: downtime, breaks, private time, rest time. None of these exist on Wednesday except at dinner time… bless dinner time!

The most interesting thing about this post to me is seeing the progressive emergence of my rage over the course of the day. My actual client hours are the best times - I may feel like I’m totally floundering but I’m also totally immersed, totally focused, really trying hard. They often end with me feeling wiped out and guilty for being such a novice. It takes a lot of work to climb the big learning curve I’m at the bottom of. It’s daunting and simply knowing that adds an element of stressed out resignation to everything I do. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know how hard it will be, how long it will take to master my craft. It makes me feel despair to know that I have to live in this limbo of mediocre work (at best) for probably 2 or 3 more years.

And there’s the usual - family stress, eustress over Husband’s new job (he likes to stay super private here, so I’ll just say he got into a program he’s been angling for for about four years, and this is a MAJOR celebration for us and him. He survived seven interviews and a massive bundle of paperwork and he’s about to embark on a fellowship to become something much more suited to his temperament than his current work. I couldn’t be prouder or happier! Way to go, Moof! Yay!), my ongoing fears about my stupid fucking nerves, Canada Post can’t find my parcel.

But here is the upside: my house is disheveled but it reads Husband… I can see what he ate, where he sat, and what he did while he was home. It’s comforting to see his spoor about the house. I have a great place to live and though it is so, so hard, a career I can work on. And… okay, I ran out of sunny things to say. Maybe I should have kept that happy-gram after all.