I miss the weekend. Not the part when I woke up cold Saturday morning and found that the thermostat was dead and nothing I knew how to do got the heat going again. (I’m sure Mr. Karen doesn’t miss the way he spent most of his Saturday having quality time with the circuit breaker, the furnace, and the new thermostat, either.) Not the part when my class was cancelled because the instructor has never been through a Michigan winter and the three inches of snow we had between Friday night and Saturday morning freaked her out. Not the part when I woke up with a cold Sunday morning despite taking plenty of vitamin C and having adding echinacea to my routine back around Christmas.

What I miss is the part when I got to work on my projects, like the photo album pages and the baby quilt for Jen. I miss the part when we watched the Vikings actually win their playoff game at Lambeau. I miss the part when I got to decide what to do instead of being told by customers and coworkers. But weekends don’t pay the bills, so here I am at the office with my fizzy cold medicine and my long face.

The colleague who does almost the same job as I do is on vacation this week, so staying home sick wasn’t really an option because I have to handle not only my work but any requests for him that can’t wait. Sure, if I had pneumonia or something, Purple Systems would just have to deal with both of us being out, but I’m not that sick. I’m mostly just whiny and feeling sorry for myself. It’s too bad they can’t add a fast-acting antidepressant to the multi-symptom cold relief tablets.