My Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I remember reading Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst, to my kids when they were young. At the time, I was a working mother in my thirties, and I was sure my days were more terrible and horrible than any kid’s could be. I didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for Alexander, whose worst problems seemed to be that he didn’t get dessert at lunch, had to wear plain white tennis shoes, and was called a crybaby.

I’ve since come to realize that terribleness is in the eye of the one who experiences it, and I will now admit that kids can have no good, very bad days, just like adults.

But I want to whine in this post about my own recent terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It was yesterday.

I had to begin the day waiting for the accountant to call about our tax returns. He’d said he would call the day before yesterday, but he didn’t. That meant I had to wait around the house for him to call. Waiting is not my strong suit, particularly when the subject is taxes. I hate organizing records, talking about returns, and I especially hate paying money. So the day started off terrible.

I started a load of laundry since I was stuck at home. And then, still waiting for the accountant, I began to fill out the paperwork to list our current house—all the disclosure statements and contract amendments. I’d been through the documents with the realtor already, and also with my husband, but now I had to fill them out. In ink. I’m perfectly capable of doing this task, but I did not enjoy it. It was horrible.

About 9:30, after a lot of fuming and little progress on the real estate documents, I called the accountant’s office to leave word I had to run some errands, so he shouldn’t call me except between 11:00am and 1:00pm. Then I got groceries. I hate getting groceries, but it is a necessary task. I never get groceries so early in the day, and the store didn’t have their rotisserie chickens cooked yet. There went my dinner plans. I had to switch to Plan B—leftovers. No good!

I got home, put the groceries away, and the home repair guy (who is doing a few repairs before we can list the house) wanted money. So I had to write him a big check. Did I mention I hate to pay money? Plus, he needed to turn the water off, which I authorized, then my husband rushed in after the first of four meetings he had yesterday, and said he needed to clean up, so I unauthorized the water shut-off, then reauthorized it again after hubby dashed out for Meeting 2. I was running Grand Central Station and preparing contract documents at the same time. The day was officially very bad, and it was only lunchtime.

The accountant still hadn’t called by 1:30pm, but I had a doctor’s appointment and had to leave the house again. I went to the doctor’s appointment. No serious problems, but I needed a Tdap booster, so I got a shot. Even Alexander would probably admit that a shot made my day a horrible day.

I had told my husband I would drive across town to get the credit card he had left at the restaurant where we had dinner a few days earlier. I was being a good wife, and saving him an hour at the expense of my own time. He, however, got to go to his four meetings and have lunch with a friend, while I didn’t get any writing done except this post (which I didn’t write until evening). And yesterday afternoon, traffic was terrible due to road construction, so it took longer than I anticipated to get to the restaurant.

I got to the restaurant, and the credit card was locked in a cash register to which the bartender on duty did not have access. His manager wouldn’t be there for half an hour. I couldn’t wait. This was no good. So I left and headed home.

To avoid the road construction, I took a different route home. And I encountered a very bad accident which stopped all traffic. After a long delay, I got off the freeway at the next exit and wended my way home on surface streets.

Back home, I learned someone had scheduled me to do something at church on a day when I’m going to be out of town. On a day when I’d told her I’d be out of town. I would say that this person was terrible, except that I know she isn’t. But I sent her a curt response, and then I felt horrible.

Also at home, I waited for the accountant to call. Which he didn’t. And I fretted about pocket door hardware for our new house.

I ate my leftovers by myself, because my husband had headed out to Meetings 3 and 4. When I poured myself a glass of iced tea, there was a catastrophic failure in the almost full two-gallon container in which the tea was stored. A cascade of tea flowed through the refrigerator and over the kitchen floor. This alone would have made the day terrible.

I cleaned up the mess, which required the use of all the towels in the kitchen, which in turn required an emergency second load of laundry for the day. Second loads of laundry are no good but don’t quite rise to the level of very bad.

Through all this, the accountant still didn’t call. I am uploading this post at 9:00pm, and not a peep out of him. Which makes him a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad accountant.

Alexander wanted to go to Australia. I don’t think Australia would help me much. I’d still have to pay taxes.

When have you had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day? And how did you vent about it?