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Day 28. in which our heroine escapes unscathed (knock on wood)

Last Friday evening was when the scourge first took over our house. It afflicted the youngest first - first Liam, then Lilith. In the wee dark and sleeping hours of Monday morning, it came for Seth. Next Dana fell with it by the evening. And Grandpa Bob lost his appetite completely. Something was truly amiss...

Being Monday is already a bad state by its very nature. A creature of habit, I'm completely thrown off by the weekend. I feel like I am being re-released into the universe after being in a long coma every Monday morning, like I have forgotten how to exist outside of my pajamas over the weekend.

And I knew this particular Monday was going to be bad from the very start. Fifteen minutes into the morning, Dana and I were having this completely useless argument about laundry. Yeah, laundry. Dana couldn't find something because I had moved it from the spot he keeps it so he can find it in order to wash it because it was dirty. (Did you get all of that?!) These arguments aren't really about anything. These are the types of arguments two harried people have when they are rushing around, trying to do ten things at once.

I can't find my sweater!

"What sweater?" I ask.

My brown sweater! The one with the Polo!

"It's in the blue basket in the basement, only I haven't brought the basket upstairs yet...It's clean."

Sometimes I wish you just wouldn't do my laundry! I can't find anything when you do my laundry!

"But then it would never done! because you would never do it! And besides, it smells!"

I don't smell! It doesn't smell!

"Sure it smells! It smells like dust! It's disgusting!"

I need to be warm! I work outside! and I do not smell!

Yes, you do!

By the time you get to this back and forth, you should realize it's no longer about laundry, nor was it ever. It's about chasing Lily around the room, trying to get her dressed. It's about realizing you left the car keys upstairs. It's about going to get the car keys, coming downstairs, and then realizing you left the diaper bag upstairs. It's about getting a call from the sitter who won't be available today.

Indeed. This just seemed like one of those days!

Work was about the same. I wished most of the day I could go home. Then I walked into my house...and wished I could go back to work! I was surrounded by the illness, and its victims!

Yet I do have something to be joyful about - I have not been taken by It. I stand unscathed! Knock on wood...