We interrupt this programming . . .

A short post not related to Mexico.

I cried at work yesterday.

It was over something completely ridiculous, brought on more by tiredness and frustration than anything else. I'm going to tell you about it, because that's what blogs are for, right? Oversharing? However, you must promise not to make fun because it could easily happen again. Both the crying and the cause.

Work is very busy right now; we're in the throes of briefing a preliminary injunction motion. Which means everything has to be done super fast. More than 90% of my billing last month was devoted to this particular case.

My firm takes up five floors. I find it much faster to take the stairs rather than the elevator. Also, I count it as my daily workout. Even if I only do a single flight in a day. It totally counts. We have these nice, pretty stairs right by my office that go up to the next floor, but for all the other floors, I have to use the internal building stairs. They're the metal/cement things that are in every office tower everywhere. I've nearly fallen down them approximately 1,536,209 times, however, I've been lucky so far and have only nearly fallen down them. KNOCK ON WOOD RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW. Our paralegal -- not so lucky. She took a tumble Monday night.

The stairwell doors are all locked so we have to wear security badges to move freely about the firm. I'm dashing around like crazy yesterday, trying my darnedest to be efficient and fast and productive, so I run down to the ninth floor to meet with one of the partners, rather than taking the elevator. The partner is waiting for me in his office, so I figure the stairs will be much faster. As soon as the stairwell door clicks shut, I realize I'd forgotten my security badge.

No access.

Typically, I'd just dash down to the first floor, take the elevator back up to ten and go along my merry way. I know this because it totally happened to me in when I worked in San Diego. However, there, I was on the 14th floor. And I'd gone to the gym the night before so my legs were killing me. That was a slow and painful descent.

Not yesterday. I sorta had to pee, but of course, as soon as I realized I was locked in that awful stairwell, I suddenly really had to go. And, as most of you know, I can't really hold it so well. Dude. Four kids. Do the math. And the physics. And biology.

Add in the tiredness and the craziness and the loneliness (why that emotion showed up just then, I'll never know, but it totally did) and the claustrophobicness (not a word), and it was all just too much. So I sat down on the top step and started to cry. Through an ironically kind twist of fate, I was stuck in there for nearly 40 minutes. That's right. 40 minutes. Plenty of time to have my cry, dry my tears, and recompose my face.

Finally, someone walked past, heard my knock and let me out of the stairwell. After thanking him profusely for saving me, I told him that if he told anyone about this, I'd kill him in his sleep.

Because I'm stable like that.