Committee Lifer Without Parole

I woke up at 8:15 yesterday morning. That's a little early for me. Usually I don't start to regain consciousness until between 10 and 11. The problem was that I was supposed to have left the house by 8. I use the alarm clock so seldom that I can never remember how to use it and I screwed up. Why are alarm clocks so complicated these days?

I had a another stupid committee meeting and they're always so early in the morning.
The jeans and sweater I had worn the day before were still lying on the floor in a jumble, but it was the fastest thing to put on, so I jumped into them. I spent one minute on grooming and ran out the door. I looked like I had spent one minute on grooming too.

Traffic was light and I got there before anyone else. It would have been nice to brush my teeth and put some make-up on while I waited for other people to arrive, but there had been no time, I thought, to pack supplies. It was also the day of our Christmas party, so instead of feeling dressed up for a party, I felt grungy and ugly. Oh well. I still had a good time. And best of all, the party was held on company time, so not only did I get taken out for a nice free lunch, I got paid to eat it.

I had planned on quitting the committee for various reasons, the main one being that I hate committees. The excuse I was going to use was that it was too hard on me to get up so early in the morning due to my work schedule, which is true. I've mentioned that in the past, but no one was willing to start at a more civilized time, so I figured that would be the diplomatic way to end my association. This time when I brought the subject up with the expectation of politely quitting, everyone suddenly agreed that we could start later in the morning for now on. Damn!

Now how am I going to get off that committee? I know for a fact that everyone on that committee wants to quit and is trying to figure out a graceful way to do it. We can't all quit at the same time, so I think that they agreed to a later starting time not to be nice, but to keep me from quitting which would have interfered with their ability to quit. (I'm not paranoid. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.)

Once I got home, I was looking forward to a nice evening at home and then the phone rang. It was work and they were telling me that I was on the schedule to work. (My shift had just begun in theory and I wasn't there.) I explained why I wasn't working that evening and that someone must have put me on the schedule by mistake. She tried threatening me to come to work, which is never a good idea. I don't respond well to threats. Then she tried guilt and told me about the dire staffing on my unit and my poor coworkers. I still refused to come in, but I spent the evening feeling guilty. Why did I have to pick up the phone? I need to get caller ID.