The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day of a Middle-Aged Writer

I took the kids to school and said WHY DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO FIGHT and saw them unwrapping granola bars in the car spreading crumbs underneath the seat like new fallen snow. I was low on gas and it smelled like someone left a sandwich in there from yesterday and my hair is dirty and you can tell right then that today is going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I roll up to the gas station.  The woman to the left is radiating sunbeams as she pumps her gas in form-fitting yoga pants that cost more than my monthly streaming plan and the man in the sports car to my right is dressed in a suit with a botoxed forehead and is clearly off to important places and yet I keep pushing down on the lever but nothing happens until I realized I never answered the question about whether I wanted a receipt.  Damnit.

This would never happen in Paris.

I have a conference call so I turn down the air in the minivan so it won’t sound like I’m in a NASA wind tunnel and I say I am in route to a meeting but I am actually just sitting outside of Starbucks.  I stand in line and mention to the woman in front of me that I simply want a coffee.  No one moves.  I say again louder that I just want a freaking coffee.  The woman barely glances at me. I ask if I could just squeeze by super-duper quickie-poo and get this one cup of black coffee while she’s gazing at the various pre-packaged assortments of pastries as if she has nothing to do all day but she doesn’t answer.  No one is going to cheer at my restraint at not buying a milkshake for breakfast covered in loose caramel strands.  No one cares at all.

I could tell that it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

When I get to my home office, I had to step over the dog, my kids’ homework from yesterday, some paper shavings because my nine-year old likes to shred things, and some random cord. There is a jar of almonds, a busted headset, some notes from a client call I can’t remember even happening, and five empty water glasses on my desk.  I get a call from a colleague who asks a question, to which I respond with “how the hell would I know?” and she says “well aren’t you an expert in this area?” and I say “potato poh-tah-to” and she asks I’m if I’m still seeing my therapist.

I hope you sit on a tack, I say in my mind to an agent who not only rejected my book but said told me to find a new hobby.  I hope that when you go to get a burger the bun falls apart.  I hope that when you look sideways in the mirror you realize that drinking beer has caught up with you and your ego is bloated and it floats all the way across the pond to Paris.

There was a job promotion for my friend Melissa and Stephanie got a book deal.  Guess whose article was rejected in the New Yorker?   To be frank, it was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.  That’s what it was, alright, because I sat still for almost two hours in my office frantically editing and writing and talking to people and acting like I have a real job when I heard the dog barking loudly and a fed-ex delivery guy dropped off some vitamins and ruined all my concentration.  Here you go, says the postal service worker, who insisted I needed to sign for a package of B-12 tablets. Next time I’ll knock louder, he says.  Next time, I say, I’ll be in Paris.

My nanny quit and I have to go pick up the kids, I forgot their snacks and I was running late and on the way I get a call from my doctor that I need a repeat mammogram. The kids blamed me for the weather being so hot and asked why I didn’t bother to bring them bottled water.  I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I told everybody. But no one even answered.

That evening, I tell myself that I will catch up on work but there is a show on Netflix about a man who is a stylist to the stars and so I sit captivated for four episodes. They visited Paris and raved about the fashion.  Naturally.

That night I didn’t sleep well because of the work I didn’t get done.  I was thinking about my kids and my husband and my mother and the decline of my overall health and my inevitable death.  Now I’m wide awake and scrolling through facebook.  I hate randomly scrolling through facebook. Gracie got an adorable puppy.  Marie is having grandchildren.  My life is a constant comparison to perfection and look, I’m failing.  I shut off the computer and roll over, poke my husband, and ask if he’s asleep.  Not now that you are poking me, he says.

I explain that it has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. He yawns and turns over.  He’s warm and smells nice. He says that some days are just like that.

Even in Paris.

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Photo Credit

This satire piece is of course based upon the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” by Judith Viorst, in case you thought I was ripping off her jam.