My worst day ever

{This is a true story, somewhat embelished by the author}

So yeah. I woke up Monday (Jim Davis is not the only person who doesn't like Mondays) morning with a killing headache and a craving for coffee cake with sesame seeds. It was barely light outside, and cold enough to freeze the hydrolic fluid in the floor jack in the garage. I stumbled into the bathroom and started the shower because it always takes like 5 minutes for the water to warm up, and I moved down the hall into the kitchen carefully because didn't quite have my balance yet. I started a pot of coffee and went to wake up my younger siblings so I could take them to school.

I opened the door to my little brother's room...he is 4 years old, and found him crying because he had wet the bed in his sleep. Gross. I calmed him down and threw him in the shower (not literally) and started to clean up the mess. I wished my parents were still around. They were refugees from another country and had been deported about 2 months ago. They arrived here in America about 5 years before I was born looking for a better life. They indeed found it, and shortly after they came they had a house and good jobs. My dad was a mechanic, and my mom cleaned houses in Scottsdale. I was born in December of 1990. The first American Citizen in our whole family line. 1 year later, they brought another baby to the family, and 12 years after that they had my baby brother. I know I am skipping alot of time here, but all I want to talk about is my bad day. My horrible horrible very bad day. We had a happy 3 years together as a family. My dad got a raise at work and my mom was able to stay home and raise us kids. We weren't rich by any standards, but the way my parents talked about the old country where they came from we felt like millionaires. But I said all that to say that they got deported on my baby brother's 4th birthday.

So back to the wet sheets and cleaning solution and washing machine. Took me about 10 minutes. I knew we were going to be late, and I wasn't going to make it to work on time. I woke up my sixteen year old sister and told her to get a move on, and then got my brother ready to go. I dashed up some pancakes and while I was doing that I had a brilliant idea...coffee cake...pancake...coffee pancake. Worth a shot. I mixed some coffee grounds in the batter and set it sizzling on the griddle. Time is awasting! I gotta get moving. I turned up the heat a little on the stove and ran to get my sister out of the shower so I could have a turn before the water got cold. An arguing match broke out swiftly because there was a disagreement about how long my sister had been in the shower. What was all that thickness in the air? She really had used up alot of hot water to make even the hall outside steam up... I opened my mouth to add this fresh argument and filled my lungs with...Smoke! Oh no! not my coffee pancake! I dashed back into the kitchen to see that my coveted flapjack had just started on fire. I flipped it into the sink and ran water and whipped around to get the windows open.

My sister finally comes out of the bathroom looking like a fried prune and starts gasping like a beached whale. I whither her even more with my don't-even-say-another-word look and start dashing around getting my little brother ready to go and myself cleaned up. Finally, we are ready. I don't even look at the clock because I didn't want to know how late I was and we dashed out the door into my 1986 Nissan Maxima and we cruise out to do business! My stomach was growling, my head was aching and it looked like I was going to run out of gas. I dropped my little bro. off at daycare, and my sister off at her job at Subway. I worked at Pizzeria Uno as a dishwasher. Yeah, since my parents left, we had to drop out of school and get jobs, but what is a little more heartache on top of a whole lotta heartache ya know?

I get to my work and open the back employee entrance hoping to get to the time-clock and at my place before the supervisor even notices me missing. No such luck. There he is. His big beefy hand resting on the shelf that holds the time clock. He says to me, "I don't even know why you bothered showing up today. I told you last time you were late that if you were late again not to even come to work." Hm, so he did. I forgot about that. How long ago was it that he said that? Oh yeah last week. Well I didn't even reply. I just turned around and got back into my car.

I turned the key and the ignition caught, and the engine fired up. Nothing wrong with this baby. I threw it in reverse and pulled out of my spot. I decided that the last thing that grease pit of a job would see of me is burning rubber and a cloud of smoke. I pushed the stick into first gear, revved it up to 3500 rpms and popped the clutch and my engine sort of sputtered and my car lurched and stalled. What happened? I couldn't have stalled it... I try to start it again, but no such luck. I look at my gauges and find the problem...I am out of gas. So much for that.

Two hours later, my car has a gallon of gas, and I am poorer by the cost of a one-gallon gas can and a sesame seed covered coffe cake. I was going to catch some flack for being out of budget and buying snack food, but I needed alittle comfort. I decide to spend my day looking for another job. I go from one place to another, but most of the good jobs need me to have an i.d. "I don't have a drivers liscense" I keep telling them, "I am not 18 and my parents can't help me." Tough luck...I keep driving past the seedy-looking establishments and crossing my fingers at all the high-end stuff. Nope, nobody needs anything. Fine. I will try again tomorrow.

I pick up my sister from her job, and by this time it is nearly 6 o'clock p.m. I pull out of her parking lot and she is griping about all of the people that she hates at work and how bad of a day she had and I am just sort of distracted by my bad day and I think I see a hole in traffic and gun it. Nope. not a hole in traffic anyway. Bang, Crash Scrape...whatever words you want, is the sound of me making a hole in the side of a green Hyundai. Oh Man. This is the pits. I am ready to scream, but my sister is doing enough for both of us at the moment.

So I am not going into detail about the rest of the day...I don't want to relive that anyways. My car got towed and I have a court date and a big fine to pay. Even worse is that those sesame seeds showed up in a drug test as positive for me doing drugs. Well, such is life I guess.

{The author happened to be the one driving the green Hyundai, so his perspective on the life of the main character might not be accurate as he is not privy to the exact details thereof.}

e-mail me: not.a.pipe.dream@gmail.com

-David