Ridiculously embarrassed

I need some Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb Pie.

For those who aren't dorkier-than their-own-parents middle-aged-acting NPR listeners, let me elaborate. Bee-Bop-A-Ree-Bop Rhubarb Pie is one of the fake sponsors of Garrision Keillior's A Prarie Home Companion

(along with the Ketchup Council and Powdermilk Biscuits, which give shy people the strength to get up ad do what needs to be done). The pie, allegedly, "takes the taste of shame and humiliation out off your mouth."

Here's why.

I have been applying for a job working an an assistant to a program in the department where Paul works at our alma mater (me undergrad, him MSW). We'd be less than 100 feet away from each other, and it's a part-time gig so I could keep freelancing. Everybody there seems remarkably family-friendly for an academic environment. If I were going to go back to a nine-to-five while Maggie is little, it's ideal.

But guess what? I FAILED THE TYPING TEST.

A motherf-ing typing test. Want to know my IQ? 131, people. And guess what I do for a living? And have for more than 10 years? A job that requires lots of, you guessed it, TYPING. Fast typing. But because I couldn't clear the bar of 40 wpm, I am out of the running here, I think. Yes. 40. Words. A. Minute. A monkey could type that fast. Apparently it's possible to be an award-winning reporter and reasonably successful freelancer without being able to type.

Making this more embarassing, the person to whom I would report is someone I have known since I was like 14. She's a good friend of my mom's. So I have to email her and say yes, it did sound like I'd be a good fit for this job but guess what? I am too HOPELESSY LAME to pass the typing test (I should add there was a clerical test too, which I rocked).

It is a blessing in disguise, I guess; I've been really leery about putting Maggie in that much daycare (nothing wrong with daycare, mind you, I take no side in the Mommy Wars but it just doesn't feel right TO ME). She's in a super-clingy phase right now and wouldn't go to sleep Saturday until Paul and I got home from a night out with friends. And even then it was me she wanted, because I'd barely been home all day and she missed me. I've also been nervous about a "real" job --- it's been almost five years since I have been out on my own. I don't know how my friends who work full-time do it all, and I worry about my capabilities to do the same. Last time I worked an outside-the-house job, I was newly married and lived in an apartment with Paul and two cats; now I have a house (with attendant yard), a dog, and a child to consider. I also feel like I have exactly no time now; trying to maintain my freelance clients and add 20 working hours a week would be a strain.

I wasn't sure if I was going to take the job if I even got it, but to be out of the running for something so lame is just embarassing. Pie, anyone?