It has been a very annoying day. Before I begin ranting about the super-annoying events of my very annoying day, let me offer a disclaimer for those of you who are not well-versed in the children’s literature genre. The title of this blog entry is a nod to the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” so please, no accusations that I’m being overly dramatic. Not that I’ve ever been accused of that before.
It’s raining today, and it’s not the typical light Seattle drizzle. This is pouring down rain, the kind where you actually get pretty wet if you go out in it without a hood or an umbrella or one of those clear, plastic head-scarf-things that little old ladies wear. The rain in and of itself does not annoy me. I’ve lived in Seattle for nearly two decades now, which means I’ve pretty much earned my “Not Only Can I Handle Rain, But I Actually Really Like It” badge. The problem for me today is that I didn’t have a jacket with a hood – at least not one that worked with my outfit. I do not own a clear, plastic head-scarf-thing, because, while I might not be what you’d call a “spring chicken” anymore, I’m not THAT old. And, while I most definitely own at least a half-dozen understated (read: solid black or grey) adult umbrellas, I could not find a single one of them this morning. “Do you know where any of the umbrellas are?!” I yelled to Matt as I attempted the near impossible feat of carrying my purse, my gym bag, my lunch and Chester’s backpack to the car, while simultaneously herding Chester toward the door. Being pressed for time as usual, I didn’t wait for a reply and simply began loading the car. Just as I finished, Matt, appeared on the porch, triumphantly holding up . . . Chester’s teeny-tiny robot umbrella. I gave him the “Are you kidding?” look. He was not.
I can only hope the people who saw me using it today chuckled and thought, “Oh, look at that poor mom who couldn’t find one of her own umbrellas to use this morning as she was frantically rushing her child out the door to make it to school on time.” instead of, “Oh my God. Look at her. She thinks she’s being all hip and ironic, carrying a child’s umbrella. What an idiot” or even worse, “Aw, look at that developmentally disabled woman. How cute is it that she’s using that little robot umbrella?”
The problem with an itsy-bitsy child’s umbrella (besides the fact that it is emblazoned with primary colored robots, of course) is that it doesn’t provide a lot of coverage. So, despite looking like a cross between a frazzled mom, a Harajuku girl gone wrong and someone from the neighborhood group home, I still got fairly wet. See previous description of pouring down rain. Combine this with the fact that I am WAY overdue for a haircut and it makes for a very, very bad hair day. I think we can all agree that there isn’t much more annoying than a bad hair day; especially when it involves looking like Tom Petty after a particularly sweaty concert or being submerged in a dunk tank.
Don't get me wrong, I love Tom Petty's music, but his hair is not really the look I'm going for.
I know for a fact that I look like a drowned rat version of Tom Petty today because I had more than enough time to stare at myself in the sun visor mirror of my car. My commute is typically 25-30 minutes. Today it took well over an hour thanks to Semi-Truck versus Compact Car. I’m not sure who won the battle, but I can tell you it was not the hundreds of commuters who sat stranded on the rainy road as the minutes of their morning tortuously ticked by. Stand-still traffic is almost as annoying as bad hair.
At last, I inched past the fender-bender and traffic began moving again. I took a deep, cleansing breath and silently, cheerfully promised myself the day would begin looking up. Sadly, right then, I happened to look up and see a billboard promoting some new TV program starring Zooey Deschanel. I really don’t know anything about her as an actress, but I find her incredibly annoying and here’s why: Zooey Deschanel is to eyes what Renee Zellweger is to lips. Renee Zellweger is constantly puckering her lips in photographs and on film, leading us to believe that her lips naturally fall that way. Well they don’t. Lips don’t do that unless their owner is puckering them. Ms. Deschanel displays the same behavior, but with her eyes. Why does she insist on opening them so freakishly wide when she is photographed? Seriously, it looks weird. We get it already; you have great big, pretty, blue eyes; you don’t have to beat us over the head with it.
At this point, my only hope for recovery was the hot, creamy perfection that is my morning chai latte. My prospects for saving the day seemed promising as I approached the Starbucks near my office. I could see through the windows that only two people were in line. “Yes!” I thought, “My luck is turning around." Unfortunately, I was mistaken. The first person in line turned out to be a former employee and wasn’t so much ordering as she was having “old home week” at the counter.
“Oh my GOD! I haven’t seen you in FOREVER!” one of the baristas shrieked.
“I know, right?! How ARE you?!” she replied.
Another current employee emerges from the back room and more shrieks of delight ensue.
“Hey you! You better get over here and give me a hug right this every second!”
More screaming, giggling and lots of hugging happen.
The current employees shower the former employee with compliments, “Oh my GOD! You look fantastic!”
I was trying to be patient, I really was, but all I wanted to do was say, “Oh my GOD! I’d hate to see how fat your ass was before if you look fantastic now.” That and perhaps strangle her.
Next up was a couple, a perfect example of what I like to call “Starbucks Shoppers.” These people don’t have any idea what they want to order and they don’t give it any thought until they are at the counter. Never mind that they’ve likely spent at least two or three minutes in line, staring straight at the drink menus and pastry case. When the cashier inquires “What can I get started for you?” they seem surprised, caught off guard even.
“Oh my goodness, this nice young lady wants to take our order, Bill.”
“Hmmm . . . well, let’s see . . . what do they have.”
They absent-mindedly peruse the pastry case.
“Um, I guess I’ll have a . . . I’ll take an old fashioned donut,” the woman says (I’ll call her Jill) "and then maybe . . . . A vanilla latte.”
“What size would you like,” asks the barista.
“What size?!” Jill ponders, “Oh boy, what size? Hmmm . . . ”
“Uh . . . well . . . um . . . make it a tall, I suppose.”
“You always wish you had more,” reminds Bill.
“Actually, you know what, let’s go with a grande. Can I get a grande?”
“Sure, a grande vanilla latte and an old fashioned donut. Will that be all?” asks the unbelievably patient barista.
“Um, yeah, but . . . actually, forget about the donut, I’ll get a coffee cake instead. And do you have sugar-free vanilla? Can you make that a sugar free vanilla latte?”
You get the idea. By the time they were done ordering, it was all I could do to keep myself from beating them senseless with my tiny robot umbrella.
I finally arrived in the office, cranky and desperately needing to pee. “Please don’t sneeze, please don’t sneeze,” I silently begged myself as I raced to the bathroom, where I made the next annoying discovery of the day. My pants are missing their button. This was not the case when I put them on at my house. I distinctly remember buttoning my pants, which were too loose, causing me to add a belt. How does a button that is fastening loose pants and that is held in place by a belt just randomly jump ship? Where did we go our separate ways? At Chester’s school? In my car? As I squirmed in line at Starbucks? I will never know. All I do know is that fussing with button-less pants all day is . . . you guessed it, annoying.
I went to the gym at lunch. This is usually a highlight of my day, despite my gym having the dumbest women’s locker room in the world. The genius who designed this thing created tiny cubicles, only big enough for two people to stand in, and then lined them with rows and rows of lockers. In the middle of each pod of lockers is an itty-bitty bench, probably only two feet long. Now, I said two people can stand in each area – that is assuming they are both fairly small people and that they are close enough friends to not care about being in extremely close proximity to each other while getting naked. I followed my friend Dea into the locker room today and paused at the mirror to gawk at my Tom Petty hair. Finally, unable to bear the horror any longer, I tore myself away and headed to the first locker pod. There was a nearly naked woman there. Upon noticing what looked like Dea’s hair and a tattoo on the same shoulder that Dea has a tattoo, I began to squeeze in next to the panty-only-clad woman. Just as my hip brushed hers, I noticed that her tattoo was a cluster of stars, while Dea’s is a butterfly. Star girl gave me an annoyed look (now I’m even passing my annoying day onto unsuspecting, innocent others) as I scurried to the next pod, muttering my apologies. There I found the actual Dea and began the annoying process of getting undressed and redressed within the confines of a small box shared with another person and a useless little bench. I know the dimensions of this ridiculous space well and have developed an uncanny knack for functioning within it. Much like Houdini escaping from a locked box while bound in chains, I can magically move within the space. But today there was an unexpected obstacle for which I was unprepared: someone had left a locker door open. I pulled my shirt off and felt a sharp crack as the back of my head smacked into it. Was I seriously injured? No. Was I at a whole new level of annoyance? Yes.
The annoying just kept coming all day long. No serious problems; nothing truly distressing or awful, just annoying, annoying and more annoying. Each time, I tried to remain positive. I tried to acknowledge the annoyance bubbling up inside me and let it go. I thought I could de-sour and maybe even sweeten, but after the locker incident, it was over. My day was officially annoying. “Ronda and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Annoying Day.”
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