You miss one day at work, and everything you've worked weeks to put into motion completely falls through the cracks... in one day! Who else has experienced this? I know I'm not the only one.

Thanks to mother nature's wonderful fluctuation in temperatures this time of year, I was sick Monday, and stayed home from work. I return on Tuesday to a FUBARed mess. The circus trip we'd planned for a month was being cancelled. Who is to blame? The boss, of course.

One of my assistants was to pick up the tickets for the children and their chaperones Friday afternoon. However, after I left work Friday afternoon, the boss told her to wait on two children who'd not turned in their money yet. To make a long story short, we lost our reservations. Instead of saying "I'm sorry, but you didn't have your money in on time, so your child can't go with the class", the boss says wait, and now the trip is a wash.

But the idea that angers me most, is that the boss attempted to push the blame off on the three teachers in my classroom. Then had the nerve to tell me to think positively and stop ranting while he and his assistant tried to rectify the situation. So, he saw the angry side of me; the side that only shines through when my extremely high tolerance for stress and aggravation is destroyed. Boss or not, I wasn't being pinned for this screw up.

I told him in no uncertain terms that he was taking blame, and that he would be dealing with the angry parents (who by the way forked over a total of $430 just for tickets... that's not including spending money). I also let him know that he would be explaining to my room full of 3 and 4-year-olds why they wouldn't be attending the circus. Let's not forget to mention that the babies had been counting down the days for two weeks.. we had a pull-away calendar and everything.

But no matter what he says to them, they're still going to look to me and wonder why they can't go now. Oh, but it's ok.. he's going to give them cake and ice cream to make up for it all. Big stinking deal.

Elephants, lions, acrobats VS. cake and ice cream. Gee.. this will be a hard choice.

When Friday comes and I can't say "Let's go see the elephants!" there are going to be some very upset babies, and a set of very frustrated teachers on that man's hands. Hopefully he's learned that passive Ms. Smith has her limits, and heaven help him once those limits are breached.