Alexander and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day

Remember the song lyric, "Mamma said there'd be days like this..."? It's vaguely in my memory too, mainly as the background music to a Pepto-Bismol commercial. Go ahead and insert that tune into the tape deck as you read this post...

I'm not sure I know where to begin or even where things began to go south - but they did, quickly. Sometime after lunch Adam informed me that he had just had a meeting confirming the fact that a hold had been placed on all company hiring and an instituted company shutdown. But even worse was the news that all yearly raises would be withheld and possibly the annual bonus included in our salaries.

While gnawing on these little tasty bits, the rollercoaster really began to descend on the track:

I just left the parking lot on my way home from work. And to give you some background, I had been planning for some time to change the worn rear tires on my car - more practically, this Saturday morning. As I entered the first roundabout, I felt my rear wheels go and in a matter of a few seconds I was sliding into the curb, right front corner first. I immediately knew I was in trouble when I saw that not only had my tire gone flat but the rim was smashed and rendered unusable. I pulled up a little further, getting out of the way of traffic. Somewhat in shock, I stood around making some phone calls trying to decide the next plan of action. The decision was to go ahead a put the spare on, and hope that I hadn't messed up any of the critical steering pieces. Entering Project Tire Change. I will admit that I had never before changed a tire, and I sat around reverse engineering the process by looking at all the tools in the spare tire kit. Well, at this point it is dark, I have no light other than my cell phone , I'm laid out in the dirt and mud in my best clothes trying to find the ball joints to mount the tiny tire jack (which looked like it could maybe raise my bicycle wheel if it wasn't windy). After attempting unsuccussfully for around an hour, with my cell phone dying, I gave up hope and fell to the breaking point, nearly to tears. I walked to the roadside and just stood. The second car to pass immediately pulled over and a short, vivacious Franco-Algerian jumped out of the car yelling at me. I, however, didn't care in the slightest what tone he was using, just as long as he was going to help. From his poor French with a thick Algerian accent, I learned that what I was doing was all wrong, and the process is actually easier than I thought. When he found out I was American, his tone immediately changed praising Americans and the new President "Oobbamma". I pushed all political ideals and commentary aside and agreed with anything and everything he said. Afterwards, he left and I was back up and running again with Adam arriving on-site to follow me as I limped the 10 miles back to my appartment. But sadly, the day still had some fight left in it.

I arrived back at my place, set my bag down, and open my mailbox. Of course, there was a ticket inside from the French government showing a 135€ ($180) fine for going 6 kph (in a 50 kph) over the speed limit (taken from radar station). That's fricken, 3.7 mph over the speed limit and I get blown away with that kind of fine! Who's in charge of this bureaucratic nightmare? People drive as if there are no rules here and I get hit with that?!? Oh and a side note, if I had been going less than one mph slower, there would have been no fine - just like the car in front and behind me. Kick the football again Charlie Brown!

And if it wasn't enough, picking up my bag to march angrily inside, my bag handle decided it had enough too and promptly broke. Around that time, I received a text message from my service provider telling me that the monthly credit I had purchased a mere 5 days before had expired. "Why does the world hate me?" As if that wasn't enough for one week or month, my bike tire decide to fall apart before my ride.

"Mamma said there'd be days like this. There'd be days like this my mamma said..."

Thanks to Adam and Laura for comforting me that night with dinner and a movie.