I just had the week from hell. This was a week you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. Well, maybe you'd think about it...

It started at work, of course. I don't usually read memos, because I know that they will either drive me into a rage or near suicidal depression. But, I opened this one..

The Department, had eliminated my Legal Studies program - a program I was asked to devise - a program which I not only wrote, but put my heart, soul and love into, and they were doing so after letting it operate for less than two months. That was bad.

They had done so with the votes of three faculty members who I considered friends, at a meeting where I was not present. Eliminating the program was bad, but betrayal is such a bummer.

I just wanted to go home, and go to bed.

Monday morning I had somewhat recovered, and had a meeting scheduled with three men who I was trying to talk out of a lot of money. You know what that's like for women. Pants or a dress? But, does the black silk jacket make me look too serious. Am I going to look too butch, or like Lorianna Bobbit.

Finally, I had the look, just right, every hair in place, every eyelash separated. I then confidently picked up my contact case and washed my $300.00 contacts down the drain. My whole body froze. "You don't have your contacts in. You weren't rinsing out the case, you were pouring your contacts down the drain.

"OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Here I was, immaculately dressed, taking the pipes apart with a greasy wrench, digging with my emerald studded fingers in all the gunk out of the pipe. I found one contact.

You can't go to a meeting and keep one eye closed. The only pair of glasses I had were huge and PINK. This was going to look sooooooo professional. I just wanted to go to bed.

The meeting went well, but when I got home, exhausted, the phone was ringing. It was one of my students. I badgered this student into buying a computer. Now, she's become a computer chat room addict.

She phoned to tell me she had consented to let a man she met in a chat room come half was across the country and stay in her house for two weeks.

"He could slit your throat." I said to her.

"Awww, Doc, you're just being paranoid."

"Paranoid, do you READ the newspapers?

I told her to tell him he wasn't coming. I hung up knowing that there wasn't a chance in hell she would do it. I wanted to go to bed.

When my husband came home, angel that he is, he took the pipes apart again looking for my other contact. I went looking for a cat. I NEEDED a cat.

Peep' favorite placeis a wicker chaise in the living room. But, he wasn't there. I got down on my hands and knees to see if he was underneath.

Slowly, in my brain cell deprived mind , a sentence started to form "My God. "The carpet's wet." .

I peeked into the bathroom. "Dahlin'? Could you come and look at a teeny tiny problem? I'm going to bed."

The next morning I thought, hey, this is what you have homeowners insurance for, right? I phoned my insurance agent. (Yawn) "You have a five hundred dollar deductible." He said. But, I'm an adult right. I stifled my inclination to go down to State Farm and poke his eyes out with an ice pick. Instead, I went with dignity to my study.

Aboput fifteen minutes later, my computer froze up completely. Then, a black screen said "Your hard drive has been locked to protect your long file names". "What the hell does that mean?" I said to the computer. I turned it off and on again. "Your hard drive has been locked to protect your long filenames.

Now, in case you never noticed, your computer is like your mouth, or other parts of your body that we can't mention. When they work, you take them for granted, but when there's something wrong with them, you can't think of anything else.

I don't know how these weeks happen. It's like some kind of bad karma that won't go away. Just telling you about it is enough to make me want to go back to bed.