Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Horrible Year

Have you ever read the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? I think I'm having that . . . but not a day. More like a year. If you want a pop culture citation, allow me to refer you to the theme song of Friends.

The facts:

I got laid off from the loveliest job.

I spent all my savings on a really old car.

I crashed the car. This was really expensive.

I crashed the car again. This was moderately expensive.

I found out that the car doesn't like to start when it's hot outside.

I got a flat tire.

I got a lot of parking tickets. Car ownership is a blast!

Our apartment got fleas. I'm not sure you realize the injustice of this one until you appreciate that a.) I'm a little bit of a compulsive cleaner, b.) I LOVE dogs, but c.) we are not allowed to have dogs. Or cats. Our landlord upstairs has cats. He didn't get any flea bites. We got flea bites. He recommended that we vacuum every day. I recommended that he call in a professional exterminator. I did win on that last point, but I also vacuumed a lot and spent a lot of quality time at the laundromat. And I still subscribe to the gross injustice of not being allowed to have pets and getting fleas. FLEAS. Eew! Ick! Life is mean.

I took my first vacation day in six months (at the new job), and my flight got cancelled. I mean, this is SFO, and no one's surprised, but I still missed a day up in Oregon with my family.

I took out an audiobook from the library last month, listened to eleven disks of it in raptures, and then the twelfth disk was scratched beyond repair. I will never know if Lirael vanquished the necromancer and his minions and sent them back into death or, like, got a boyfriend. Not cool. Not fair.

I gained five pounds.

Final tally:

The horrible year: 11
Becky: 0

I'm telling you what I told my boyfriend. I'm writing off 2012. We'll try to do better next year.

Luckily, I'm an English major, and we have resources to draw upon in this sort of situation. I give you Bridget Jones's Diary:

"On way home in end-of-Christmas denial I bought a packet of cut-price chocolate tree decorations and a £3.69 bottle of sparkling wine from Norway, Pakistan or similar. I guzzled them by the light of the Christmas tree, together with a couple of mince pies, the last of the Christmas cake and some Stilton, while watching Eastenders, imagining it was a Christmas special.
    Now, though, I feel ashamed and repulsive. I can actually feel the fat splurging from my body. Never mind. Sometimes you have to sink to a nadir of toxic fat envelopment in order to emerge, phoenix-like, from the chemical wasteland as a purged and beautiful Michelle Pfeiffer figure. Tomorrow new Spartan health and beauty regime will begin."

Or if you prefer, High Fidelity:

"Go and put some old sad bastard music on, see if I care."

2 comments:

  1. "It's all very well to read about sorrows and imagine yourself living through them heroically, but it's not so nice when you really come to have them, is it?" --Anne of Green Gables
    2012 is almost over, Becky!!! I am having a similarly shitty year(s), but we can take comfort in the idea that 2013 is a brand new year, with no horrible events in it yet.

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  2. That thing with the audio book is just totally enraging.

    Also fleas? I mean, I've seen fleas on various pets I've had but never had any ill effects. Rough rough rough.

    Hugs to you Becks! And 2012 will be done with soon (with a couple of cool presents from Vietnam before it totally ends).

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