Suzy Says

It’s 6:15 am. Do you know where your Suzy is?

She’s blasting down the highway in her Ramones-powered car, cursing the darkness and the blare of oncoming headlights equally. And hoping that the day’s marathon won’t be as bad or as long as the rest of the week’s.

I’m a slow learner. At least I left my book at home*, so I did learn something. No reading for you!

At this early hour, I had not only caffeinated and donned my faux adult disguise, but also cleaned out the litterbox twice, including one of Clyde’s patented DeathDumps(TM). It’s all about the glamor with me.

The point of these predawn endeavors was to get the mountain of work done to prepare for the annual fundraising event at work. It seemed that everything went wrong, from the computer system varying from barely working to not working to shut down, to the facilities guy ordering the wrong supplies I needed to create name tags and labels.

As I was sorting through donations one day, one of the doctors stopped by to observe that events are extremely inefficient fundraisers, since the return on one’s effort was so low. This was not news to me, though I can’t say I appreciated that remark at that particular point in time.

Every day, I thought I could get X number of things done, and every day I fell short of the mark, no matter how long I worked. Being the Little Suzy that Could was getting pretty old pretty fast. In the end, I logged about 55 hours of work and five bottles of wine in one week, and I did get it all done in time.

I’m trying not to think about next year’s event. Maybe I’ll forget how bad it was by the time it rolls around again. Or maybe I’ll be better at preparing for it. Or maybe we will come up with a more efficient way to raise money.

Well, Scarlett, if tomorrow is another day, next year is a whole year away.

*I often sit in my car and read on the rare occasions when I take a lunch break. No matter how unlikely it is that I will need it, I have an innate dislike for leaving the house without a book**, a tendency I share with Jessica. Once Megan and I picked her up and Megan asked if Jessica had a book with her, and she responded, “Really, Memmin, have you ever known me to be without a book?”

**Back when I used to travel, I was always amazed by the people who would get on a flight, especially a really long one, with nothing to read. And there’s always one person who falls asleep before takeoff and stays that way until landing.

A YEAR AGO: An all-girl road trip to the South Coast.