One of Those Days

Posted by John

You know those mornings when you wake up and it’s just too cold to get out of bed? The alarm has gone off even though the sun hasn’t even come up yet. Your eyes are still heavy with sleep as you open one lid just that fraction of a fraction of an inch to peak at the clock. The numbers seem to be mocking you, 6:00, as you think to yourself, “Can that honestly be right?” as you wonder if you actually slept at all through the night because it certainly doesn’t feel like it. It takes several moments to even figure out what day it is, “Is it Friday?... No, it’s Thursday,” then a few seconds later, “Shit… it’s Monday.”

Finally you roll out from under the covers and feel the numbness of the cold air, then shuffle off to the bathroom where you stand in front of the mirror for what seems like 15 minutes with your eyes closed because every time you try to open them the light feels like someone is trying to stab them out with a dull pair of scissors. You go through your shower routine – shampoo, rinse, shampoo… “Wait, did I already shampoo?”… Rinse again. You get out, look down and realize you were wearing one of your slippers the entire time in the shower.

You go to your closet, pick out an outfit, think to yourself, “I’m pretty sure I wore this last week,” but you put it on anyway. Go back to look in the mirror, “Yup, definitely wore this last week.” Drag a comb through your hair then head to the kitchen.

You get to the sink and look out the window at a blanket of snow laying across your yard, the third major snow storm this winter season even though when you were moving here everyone bragged about how it never snowed and they don’t even own boots or winter coats here or blah, blah, blah. “What the fuck? This is miserable. What happened to global warming? Was that all just a big fat lie or something?” you wonder because you don’t read anything but the local paper and don’t watch anything but the local news so you’re just angrily unaware that dozens of people died in a heat wave in South America last week, which is just inconceivable because you’re cold right now; how can it be hot somewhere else?

Then you get out a bowl and fill it with cereal, then pour a glass of milk and coat your high-fiber, flaxseed, bark-like-bullshit cereal with orange juice. “Shit. That’s the third time this month,” but you eat it anyway because it would be too much effort to fix a new bowl.

After you eat you put on your shoes, scarf, coat, gloves, “Fucking global warming. What a scam,” then grab your bag and walk out the door. Setting a foot on the driveway you realize you forgot to brush your teeth, “Oh well, too late now,” then walk to your car, which is covered in ice. Scrape, scrape, scrape. Scrape, scrape, scrape. “Global warming my ass.” When you finally scrape off enough ice to create a little 4” diameter peephole in the middle of the windshield, you get in and drive off.

The roads are absolute shite, nothing but snow and ice as you sleep drive the same route you drive to work day in and day out. You get stuck behind some dipshit Tennessean in an SUV the size of a commercial truck going 12 miles per hour. “Why do you own an SUV, you douche? 360 days out of the year you get 8 miles to the gallon on perfectly dry and clear roads yet here you are in the one condition for which your SUV was designed and you’re driving slower than a motorized wheelchair? Your only saving grace is that global warming is clearly not real.”

As you near downtown you cross two consecutive one-way streets as you do everyday. You’ve never seen a car on these roads. Never. At the first you look left, all clear, then drive across. At the second you look right, all clear, then drive across. But just as you get to the midpoint of the street you see something out of the left side of your peripheral and instinctively slam on the breaks and turn to stare at the sight before you, wondering if it's real. “Is that a snow plow?” you ask yourself. “Yes, yes it is,” you confirm. “Is it driving backwards?” you wonder, “Yes, yes it is,” you verify. “Backwards the wrong way down a one way street?” you ponder, “Yes, yes it is!” you validate. "Is it about to run right over top of me?!?" you panic, "Yes. Fucking-a, yes it is!!!" And suddenly for the first time since your alarm went off an hour earlier you’re awake. Like wide fucking awake. You slam your foot onto the gas pedal but the road is solid ice, the wheels just spinning in place as the snowplow continues to advance. It’s so close now the salt it’s spitting out is ricocheting off your windshield. You throw the gearshift into reverse and slam down the accelerator again. The wheels spin, catch finally, and your car shoots off just in time for your front bumper to clear the plow’s rear wheel by inches; rock salt still bouncing off your hood and windshield.

A safe distance away now, you look up at the driver of the plow as he passes. He looks down at you as if to say, “What the fuck were you doing behind my snowplow?”

“What? What the fuck was I doing? I was driving to work. Forwards. The correct way down a two-way street. What the fuck were you doing? You were snowplowing backwards. The wrong way down a one-way street! That’s not how you snowplow a street! In fact that is the exact opposite of how you snowplow a street! I understand you only snowplow like four times a year here but don’t you think you would try to get it right for those four times??? And by the way, why was your snowplow not making a loud beeping sound as you were backing up? Did you disengage that because it got annoying on account of all the backwards snowplowing you’ve been doing???”

You then sit in your car, idling, for several moments as you try to collect your breath. When you finally get the courage to continue, you look both ways at the one-way street. Eight times.

You know that old saying, “If a tree falls in the middle of the forest and there’s no one around to hear it, will it make a sound?” I don’t know the answer to that. But I do know the answer to this saying: “If you’re all alone in your car with no one around to hear you, and you’re about to be mauled over by a snowplow driving backwards the wrong way down a one-way street, will you make a sound?” Yes. Yes you will. You’ll scream out like a profane little schoolgirl, “SHIIIIIIT!!!” And then you’ll spend the next few minutes collecting your bowels back into your abdomen from off the floor of your car.

Have you ever had one of those mornings?