It Was So Good It Could Only Get Worse

I got up on Monday morning and freshened myself up for the day ahead of me. Mornings are a really bad time for me because, well, I have to stop sleeping. But I managed fairly well for a Monday, and as I approached the glass doors of the office building I noticed I was having an incredibly wonderful hair day.

After working for about ten minutes I had this horrible feeling. An urge. I couldn’t avoid it, even though it is the thing I loathe most to do in public. I had to poop. Ugh! So I went to the bathroom and took care of the situation as quickly as I could. As I washed my hands afterwards I looked in the mirror and admired my cute hair.

I had a meeting with my boss about an hour and a half into my day. It didn’t go so badly, I suppose, except for her way of looking at me as though I’m a freak of nature for wanting to actually serve the public ethically and legally like I’m supposed to. She continued her look at me for about forty-five minutes and our meeting was over.  I know she was envying my fabulous hair. She also pities me somewhat because it’s becoming clearer with every day my job will eventually be eliminated. When? No one knows. But it is inevitable.

Around 8:00 the construction workers came and started their work in our office space. They were tearing out a wall. Drills and saws and punching things. Loud power tools. Screeching dentist-office-like sounds. Pounding and pounding. And the dust. Oh the dust. This continued until noon when the workers took off for lunch, and of course resumed at 1:00 and nagged at me for the rest of the day.

There was also a point in the day when I dropped a gigantic case file because of a pain my elbow that has been bothering me slightly for about a week. That joint now remains in a constant state of ache and the case file needs to be reassembled…some day.

As the day wore on I started to feel agitated over all of the things I had to accomplish in the next couple of weeks in my personal life. The tasks and chores began whirling around in my head and suddenly I found my presence at the workplace to be a complete waste of time and why do I even bother to do a good job when A) I have too much to do outside of this loud, stinking rat hole and B) what’s the point of spending so much time out of my life to be rewarded with nothing more than the inevitable elimination of my job in the fairly near future?

The anxiety rose in me, and with that also came a second need to poop. Twice in one day? At work?! WTF?  When nature calls...at the mirror in the bathroom I caught a glimpse of that great hair, which put a shadow of a smile on my face.

Back at my desk I started thinking about my dead brother and actually began to cry. I hate crying at work more than anything, except pooping at work, but I couldn’t even help myself. I sat in my chair with that achy throat you get from trying to choke back sobs while dabbing the tears that forced their way down my cheeks and blowing gallons of snot out of my nasal passages.

I tried to cheer myself by reading one of my favorite blogs and was disheartened to see my comment of a previous post had been mocked by the author of the blog.

Finally it was time to go home. I crossed the windy street to the parking ramp and breathed a sigh of relief as my day in hell was nearing its end. As I merged onto the freeway I noticed an unbelievable number of cars. Could there have been more traffic? And they were all traveling at an ungodly slow speed. I forgot to tinkle before I left the office. At least I didn’t have to poop.

When I made it to the house I kicked off my shoes and saw I had pierced a hole in the toe of one of my good socks. Don’t go thinking I have talons at the end of my legs; a hole in the sock was just par for the course of the day. I went upstairs to change clothes and looked into the mirror. There it was. That hair. That wonderful hair had been blown by the wind on my way from the office to the parking ramp and turned into a mop of scraggly fur on the top of my head. The one bright spot in my day had been ruined by nothing more than a gust of wind.

What began as a perfectly wonderful hair day turned out to be one of the most miserable eighteen hours I’ve spent in a long time. I can only hope for the rest of the week I’ll be plagued with cowlicks and frizzies to spare me the emotional turmoil that comes with a good hair day.