The Week from Hell

You know that list of stressors that someone made up so you can tell if you had a bad year and exactly how bad it was? (Like you don't know if you had a bad year!)

Well, here's a stressor that was left off: Eight-year-old daughter's Halloween party.

After going through the agony of planning, worrying that I wasn't doing enough planning, yelling at my daughter and husband to help with planning, trying to not spend too much money on things like eyeball bouncy balls and witches-on-a-stick and pumpkin peeps, PLUS concocting a costume to said daughter's unrealistic specifications, PLUS discovering I'd been scheduled to work the night of the party and having nightmares about my eccentric, clueless husband supervising 12 children all by himself -- well, after all that, I think I'd rank Kid's Halloween Party right up there with Parent's Death and Reuniting With Longlost Sibling Who Turns Out to be a Cannibal. It is WAY higher than Loss of Job, New Baby and Divorce. In fact, Divorce may be considered a counter-stressor if it follows a Kids Halloween Party.

But even a Kids Halloween Party pales as a stressor (and you thought this blog entry was just some housewifely rant) beside New Hampshire Public Radio's own very special form of torture: Pledge Week.

OK, I know everyone complains about Pledge Week. It's old hat. Even Garrison Keillor makes fun of it. I used to hate Maine Public Broadcasting Network's Pledge Week until MPBN got smart and did what I'd been requesting for years: Set a goal and quit begging once they reach it.

NHPR has made no such adjustment. Their pledge breaks are almost constant, and they didn't seem limited to one week, either. They went on, and on, and on. And it's hard to believe, but their pledge breaks were even more boring than MPBN's. If there were a prize for most irritating pledge drive, NHPR would win it without even breathing hard.

It's too bad, too, because in all other respects, NHPR far outshines MPBN. Like any good Mainer, I scorn most things New Hampshire, but even I can recognize quality, and I switched all my loyalty to NHPR. Now all the mailed appeals from MPBN to renew my membership go in the dumper. If they want to play classical music 22 hours a day, it's OK with me, but I'm not going to pay for it. Ditto that Saturday afternoon opera. Man, I hate opera. What a waste of afternoon airwaves.

I know this was just a coincidence, but NHPR's most recent pledge drive just happened to coincide with Kids Halloween Party.

It would have been the straw that broke the camel's back had the camel not already been down in the dirt with spine already broken into 72 pieces. Basically, it just added more rocks to the several tons already pressing the life out of yours truly.

Is there an upside to all this? Well, yes. The party was only 2.5 hours long, everyone lived through it, all the kids had a good time, and I got to return some items that we ended up not using. And Pledge Week finally ended.

The downside, of course, is the heart attack that will probably occur sometime in January, if my calculations are correct.