Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Judith Viorst understood. I doubt she ever had a day like mine, but her book character - Alexander - is at least a child's version of my day on Thursday.

Let's start by saying that my day began with leaving a sick teenager at home. It's so difficult for a mother to leave a sick child - at any age. Work was stressful and somewhat emotional as I shared with a couple of coworkers the changes coming in my job status. I was swamped with work and my emails, phone calls and meetings mounted up all day. I kept asking myself who was going to take care of all of this when I leave and why doesn't the management think it's important? I started worrying about my coworkers and how much more they'd have to do to take over for me and it hurt my heart. I didn't want to be there and I left early, feeling empty and sad.

When I arrived home and checked the mailbox, I discovered a jury duty summons. Great. Just great. I haven't had to do that in years and now that I need to focus on searching for work, I get to hang out at the courthouse for $25 a day. Just an inconvenience that sort of added to the joy of the day.

Then I headed out to a meeting of senior parents at my daughter's high school where I was blessed with receiving a handout of the power point presentation when I entered the auditorium. Then I got to sit and listen to a teacher recite it to me long after I'd already finished reading through it. Nice. If I could have run, I would have. Note to self: next time, pick up the handout and leave. Immediately.

I bolted out before the last slide was off the screen. I had learned that prom tickets are $100, the annual is $80, we have to pay for cap and gowns, graduation announcements and a host of other things someone with no full time job does not want to hear about. The chorus trip next week is $250 and spring break is coming up with expenses for everyone. I felt discouraged , but I was eager to just head home.

That's when I hit the coyote. Yep. On top of everything else, I am a coyote killer. He darted out in front of my car and hit it so hard that I had to fight the steering wheel to hold the car in the road. I realized that moment could have been a lot worse. And then I got home and found out it was. The stupid coyote knocked off a piece of my car!

Yep - I can relate to Alexander. Some days are certainly better than others. But the truth is that none of these things are life-changing. They're just inconveniences we all face. And we all have to learn to cope with the bumps in the road or we will never be able to handle the big things. When I really think about it, the day wasn't earth-shattering. I just dealt with a sick child, struggled at work, discovered I have jury duty, sat through a boring meeting and killed a coyote.