It Was Just One of Those Days...

Sometimes, when you're a kid growing up and struggling to make it in this world, there's just not enough simple adjectives to describe a day when everything seems to be going against you. This was one of my favorite childhood books and I still think of this description when I'm having a bad day.

Friday was one of those days. It was not one for the record books by any means, but from the minute I stepped out the door, everything was a bit off. First I slipped down the stairs of my front door, the first in over four years that I've lived here, turning my ankle into a bloody mess and pretty much preventing my plans of lounging in the pool this weekend. It's been 3 days and my ankle still hurts!

When I got into work, I managed to spill half of my morning iced tea down the trash to start the work day. I did entertain and mesmerize a couple of coworkers as they watched me clean my ankle wound in the kitchen. "Oh man, were you skateboarding? Did you fall off your bike? What were you doing?" Uh no, just clumsily fell down the stairs people, no need to gawk.

The rest of the day was spent managing extra projects that my boss (out on vacation Fri and Mon) had left me. His supposedly "easy" project that I started for him and now have to deliver Monday proved to have a bit more high maintenance clients than he thought. I ended up having to check in with the artists and clients all weekend - while in Phoenix for my friend's bridal spa weekend.

One of my kind, well-meaning coworker friends (the depressed one) insisted on driving me to the airport despite being swamped with work and despite the fact I had someone else lined up to take me. I feel like a heel even bringing this up but when I got in the car, he realized the car needed gas. I also forgot that his poor manual transmission car is on its last legs, has issues going over 40 mph and lurches to and fro, rendering me nauseous before I even got on the plane. Needless to say, I stressed all the way to the airport wondering if I'd make my flight on time.

At the airport, about thirty minutes before boarding, the Southwest rep announced on the PA system "Folks, look around you. See who's standing in front and in back of you in line. Now be nice and move over to gate 10." We all scrambled twenty feet away and I ended up standing in front of an Indian family with a two-year old kid who would be the bane of my existence for the next 2 hours.

In line, he insisted on having water to drink. He drank too much and spit out half of it on the floor, on my foot, and on my bag. On the plane, they ended up sitting across the aisle from me. When the kid wasn't running back and forth and yelping with joy, he CRIED, WAILED, and SCREAMED at the injustice of being held down by his parents throughout the entire extremely turbulent flight until landing. When I had my Ipod on, it was somewhat bearable. But for those last 30 minutes of descending when you're forced to turn off all electrical items, longer than usual since we circled around and around in the air until dust storms subsided, I wanted to hurl that kid out the window. I settled for plugging my fingers in my ears and glaring at the parents, like most of the miserable passengers on the plane.

After sprinting off that plane, Miss Flip Flops came to my rescue, bearing gifts of delicious Chick-fil-a nuggets in the car. A block from her house, we got pulled over by the cops. "I'm bad luck!!" I exclaimed. "I'm dragging you down with me!" I hysterically cried. Luckily, her good luck seemed to overcome my bad karma with cops (me and cops, that's a whole other long entertaining story for another time). She got off with a warning for rolling stops at two stop signs.

We chugged along that last block to her house. As I walked in, I was greeted enthusiastically by her 13 week old half Akita/half wolf puppy. She was so excited to meet me, she peed on my foot.

I finally managed to settle down for the night and decided to take advantage of the fact that I had the office as my room. I checked all my email accounts once more and wrote for the next hour about my day. When I went to hit spell check and then save my post, the whole thing disappeared. This is my second time writing about it.