The cranky pants are back from the cleaners

Watch out, people. I'm wearing cranky pants and they're giving me a wedgie.

This is my weekend. This is My Weekend. This is MY WEEKEND. Yet I have a client, whom I have nicknamed Demando, who insists that weekends are workdays and work hours are all hours. Listen, buddy. I don't worship at that church. Yet my weekend began with a 6am email on Saturday, and has continued through Sunday with 11 emails, 17 attachments, 6 phone calls and multiple utterings of "oh, I was hoping to catch you" on my voicemail today.

When you work from home, people often disrespect the boundaries of work and home — especially the person working from home. Work/life consultants, therapists and three-year olds will all tell you that when the work day ends, close the door to your office and don't go back in until the next work day. Yet like a siren upon the rocks, my email and voicemail call to me and ultimately kill my family time. Otherwise, how would I know that Demando was laying siege upon my home?

So here I am tonight, sure that even as I sleep I will hear Demando's voice, that his continued requests and directives will creep stealthily under my closed lids and into my dreams that should be filled with ponies and clouds and and rainbows and large glasses of Diet Coke with crushed ice and the scent of coconut oil. Now that I have worked myself into a fury I am ready to launch on him, Ann Coulter, the early-morning tree cutters next door, the makers of processed cheese foods, the continuously barking dog down the hill, George Bush, the man who created size 0, perfume sprayers in department stores, homophobes, Will Durst, close talkers, cell-phone-talking-check-out-people, men who eschew deodorant for political reasons and work outdoors but come indoors, dirty cops, spammers, the creators of The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll, Pat Robertson, Britney Spear's dad, Howard K. Stern, Howard Stern and countless others who have ruined even a second of my weekend by talking, singing, writing, offending or just existing during that 48 hour period in which I should be eating pancakes with my son, drinking Peet's coffee or walking Inspiration Point at sunset with my family.

And with that I take off my cranky pants, don my cozy robe stolen from a never-to-be-named luxury hotel, and swear upon my latest Niall William's book not to ever, ever walk back into my office after I have decided that yes, put a fork in my head, I'm done.