The Great Algebra Debacle of Last Week, Pt. 1

So, since the stomach bug hit on Tuesday evening, I was in no shape to go to my morning classes on Wednesday.  I absolutely had to haul my vomiting ass out of bed for the afternoon (US History) and evening (Business Computing) ones, because there were tests in both of those classes.  I had to miss the field trip to the TV station in Intro to Radio and TV.  It was very sad.

Mr. Amazing Algebra Professor does an awesome thing on test weeks.  If you get your homework and quizzes done before midnight on Saturday, he gives you five extra points on the upcoming test.  This saved my bacon on the first test, raising my grade from an 85 to a 90.  I absolutely refuse to get anything less than an A the second time through this course.  I did it once, by Jesus I WILL DO IT AGAIN.  Maybe.

I had to go to work on Thursday, but I was determined to do my homework and quizzes that night to get my goddamn Sunday Bonus.  I needed those points.  The test was going to be on slope, and I felt confident, but you never look a Gift Sunday Bonus in the mouth.  You just don't.  So I set up my computer after the kids had gone to bed and started to log in to the math lab site.  Except I couldn't.  It kept telling me that my course had ended.  Except it hadn't.  Because if it had, I wouldn't have to get up at the crack of dawn on Monday and take a damn test.  So after many, many tries, I finally e-mailed customer support to figure out how to fix it.

They didn't get back to me until the next day.

Fine, fine.  It was only Friday.  I still had Friday night to do it, and because of my nephew's first birthday party in Houston on Saturday, I absolutely had to do it on Friday night.  I could do this.  Friday night, after the kids went to bed, I set up the laptop again and successfully logged in.

Then a good friend of ours called, already a little drunk, and wanted to come over.

My husband let him.

So I'm sitting there while Drunky and my husband (hereafter: Spike) watch Intervention (nope, no irony there, none at all), trying to work on my algebra.  The only problem is, all of those things I thought I knew?  I didn't actually know them.  I couldn't figure anything out.  Nothing at all.  So occasionally I would let out a frustrated little scream.  Which would earn me this:

Drunky:  What are you doing?
Me: My algebra homework.
Drunky:  Can I help?
Me:  No, I think I need to learn how to do it for the test.

First, I have pretty much figured out, without actually having the experience, that it's probably not a good idea to let a drunk person help you with your algebra.  Second, I really do need to learn how to do it for the test.  So I soldier on.  Five minutes later, another scream of frustration and then:

Drunky:  What are you doing?
Me: My algebra homework.
Drunky:  Can I help?
Me:  No, I think I need to learn how to do it for the test.

At that point, Spike interjects and suggests I take a break.  I retort "And do what?  Watch Intervention?"

Now I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking: why didn't she just pick up her stuff and go into another room to do it unmolested?  The answer to this is simple: we've downsized our housing situation so I can go to school.  There was nowhere else to go that wasn't the bedroom, and it's really hard to do your algebra in bed.

Finally, after about nine attempts at one single problem, I decide it's the computer's fault.  I'm probably doing it just fine and the computer has some sort of personal problem with me.  Fine, fucking computer.  You have your snit.  I'm going to give up my goddamn Sunday Bonus and just DO IT ON SUNDAY.  But remember that this is ALL YOUR FAULT and I WILL HOLD IT AGAINST YOU.

Drunky leaves, ostensibly because he sees that I am losing my everloving mind.  I give up entirely and go to bed, because we're leaving at 6:30am the next day.

Saturday comes and we go to Houston.  I manage to mostly forget about The Algebra Problem.  We have a wonderful time except for my sister-in-law's horrific best friend and then we go home.

And then Sunday comes.  It's the absolutely last possible day for me to do four sections of homework and two quizzes.  I have never left it this late before.  The snakes in my belly are back.  I sit down, boot up, log in, all that crap.  The problem is, my children are awake.  I can't exactly make them go to sleep at nine in the morning while I slog through systems of equations, so we're just going to have to deal.  And M2, who is six, does not seem to understand the Cardinal Rule about Mom Doing Her Homework: DO NOT SPEAK TO ME WHILE I AM DOING IT.  So, after "Mom, what are we having for breakfast?" (Answer: Get yourself and your sister a kolache out of the box from yesterday.) and "Mom, what are you doing?" (Answer [through gritted teeth]: My algebra homework.  Fortunately it was not followed by "Can I help?" so points for him) and then "Mom, will you give me my birthday presents on the 5th, because that's my actual birthday, or the 6th at my party?"  (Answer: Son, I JUST TOLD YOU I'M DOING MY ALGEBRA HOMEWORK LEAVE ME ALONE!!!)

After approximately nine tries at the same problem I was failing miserably at on Friday night and all of the interruptions from my garrulous offspring, I finally start to weep hysterically.  Spike is up at that point, so I go in and lay on the bed and weep and wail about algebra and what was I THINKING I can't possibly DO this, we are just going to be poor and destitute UNTIL WE DIE because I CANNOT DO THIS (I was really tired, what can I say).  He very calmly suggests that I go to tutoring before the test on Monday.  I look at him like he's an idiot and say sarcastically "Oh yes.  There will be a tutor just waiting there for me at seven o'clock in the morning."  Which was really mean of me, but I was sort of losing my shit at that point.

But then I started thinking.  Is there tutoring on Sundays?  I go look it up and there is.  I inform my family that I'm going to tutoring, and if I never see them again, please know that I love them.  And I head in to school.

To be continued in the next post....