What constitutes a bad day? A sequence of unfavorable events that might or might not be linked together but in its totality will piss me off, cause me to want to cuss or cry out.
Most people have had one of those days, and if you haven’t, consider yourself lucky, for now!!!
For most people, a bad day begins when they wake up late, or with a shitty weather, mine started way before that could even happen.
At one a.m.
After an exhausting day at work on the previous day, I slept early, like 8.30 pm kind of early, and considering how screwed up my sleep system is, I was wide awake at one a.m.
Usually, I don’t mind.
Except I have to be up by 6.30 am so I can take the bus. I grab my phone on impulse, and that when I realize that it hasn’t been charging.
Like at all!!
I try to fix that, and that’s when I realized that my temperamental phone charger has decided to bail on me.
Well, not exactly.
I figured it was rebelling against me, but no matter how many times I tried to adjust it, it refused to charge my phone.
I should have given up, I would have, except twice my rebellious phone charger worked for like 2 seconds. I felt like it was taunting me because I don’t have a spare charger (VERY VERY BAD IDEA btw).
And that’s how my phone died and left me still trying at 3am. I eventually slept before 4 am and woke up a few minutes to 8 am. I sped out of the house, hoping to still meet the 8:28 bus.
But it was not to be.
It snowed the day before and that morning, so everywhere was slippery or soggy and sometimes both, which for the safety of all my body parts prevented me from running. I figured I would be fine considering my bus is not usually precisely on time, It is often about thirty seconds late.
Except for today!!!
Today it is precisely on time and so I missed my bus by roughly thirty seconds.
Now that I think about it, the most rational thing to do at that point would have been to return home and call a cab from the home phone but I was so upset I wasn’t thinking. I just kept walking, hoping that I would find an empty taxi.
Again, It was not to be.
I was running out of time, cold, upset, phone-less, coin-less, cab-less, and out of options. I walked to the nearest gas station and asked for a phone. The person behind the counter smiled at me and gave me a phone and a cabbie’s number.
It was like hope for me.
Sometimes a smile is all it takes.
It took a while to get a cab there and I got to work five minutes late but I was so glad. By the time I signed in, the computer showed
“Signed in out of grace period.”
I didn’t even have the energy to be upset anymore, I just went about my day like I had not just had the worst morning ever. Throughout the day, I was a bit distracted because I kept waiting for my break to come so I could find my way to Walmart or Staples for a charger.
A colleague at work told me to get a long USB cable from dollarama (bless her soul), which was one of the best things I had heard all day (at least at that time). I walked to dollarama and began my search for a type C cable, which was surprisingly hard to find.
They only had two type C cables, which were both not longer than a 15 cm ruler.
Just my luck!!!
My dream for a long USB cable was crushed, and I had to make do. What was painful was not that the type C cable was so short. It was that all the other cable types were so long.
I was trying my best to be grateful for even finding one and went to get lunch. That’s when I realized that my phone was missing.
My first instinct was to cry out of frustration but since my break was almost over, I figured it would be more logical to retrace my steps, and I found my phone in the office.
When my work shift was over, I was so excited to get home.
But because I couldn’t charge my phone, I missed my first bus and had a hard time getting home. I was so done with the day and I was so happy to be home.
As I reflect on it and look at things on a larger scale, I realize that my bad day was simply a sequence of events that inconvenienced and disrupted my structured order but left no permanent damage or scars. I recognize that my bad ended as day turned into night.
So, I find myself thankful to God who has made me privileged enough that I could call that a bad day. I find myself praying for comfort for those whose days are worse than mine, and my bad days are their good days.
Definitely Fiction 