pay it forward: the bitch version

What is it about a single person in a god awful, piss ass, looking for any reason to start a fight, kind of mood that can completely ruin the entire day? And not just the time that you happen to be in their vicinity, but the entire rest of the day.

Okay, I take that back. I did have two and a half hours with the Magpie after work that did not involve me being inexplicably cranky. She was, in her beautiful toddlerness, able to obliterate the air of bark and bite hovering about me but even she, eventually, had to go to bed. And it didn't take long after that for me to get all knotted up over the state of the kitchen.

I have no idea how I could get so drawn into the bitch zone today. I am usually far better at acknowledging the difference between honest to god personal attacks versus someone is a bad mood who is just lashing out - to the latter of which I'm most often easily able to adopt a rather laissez-faire attitude.

While I likely never know exactly what set me off today, I know how to prevent it in the future: take the Magpie with me everywhere I go.