A dumb, weird day

I spent my morning counting thousands of stupid box tops for the school, then picked up the girls for swimming lessons. They are learning to dive, and they love it, so that was a good part of my day.

Now, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, but I HATE Wal-mart. Oh, I have mentioned it? Well, nothing's changed. I had to go in there today to buy some Halloween cupcake things for the kids' parties at school. While I was staring intently at the piles of orange and black crap, Olivia said, "Mommy, Grace hit me!"

"No, I didn't!" Grace said. I wasn't even going to respond, because I knew Grace wouldn't be crazy enough to engage in combat with a bonafide Tasmanian Devil. Anway, this woman, a complete stranger, came up to Grace and started wagging her finger in Grace's face and telling her not to be a liar. Grace was in tears before Olivia came clean and said Grace only pretended to hit her. I told the lady to back off, threw the damn cupcake liners back on the shelf and left. Effing Walmart.

On the way home, my cell phone rang.

"Mom?" I could tell it wasn't good news.

"Yes, Jack?"

"I've got detention, so you'll have to pick me up today." Wha, wha, what? It turns out that all he's been doing in school for the past two months is twiddling his thumbs because he worked ahead last year and now is completely bored. So he's started acting up. The last and only other time Jack's been in trouble in school was back in kindergarten when he arrived late, couldn't find his teacher, so he just decided to walk home.

Stupid day.