Have you ever had “just one of those days”? If you’re old enough to be reading this, then of course you have unless you are a complete oddity of life.
I recently had one of those days, and it turned out to be one of the roughest twenty four hours I’ve survived. It started off with the fruit platter I was making to take to my parent’s house. I went to the store to buy various fruit. It was pretty uneventful until trying to pick the perfect watermelon. I had everything else I needed, the watermelon was the last thing on my list. I picked up a watermelon and thumped it. Hmmmm, questionable so I returned it to the watermelon pile and picked another. I performed the thump test again and determined that this was a ripe, sweet juicy watermelon, so I placed it into the grocery cart. As I walked away from the watermelon display, the watermelons started rolling. By the time I was able to stop them, three watermelons had already crashed to the floor splattering the fruit and its juice all over the floor and all over me. My legs and feet were covered in watermelon so I couldn’t even pretend that I knew nothing about the avalanche which had just occurred. Besides, just about everybody on that side of the store had stopped and turned to look with hopes of discovering from where the ear piercing scream had come. Ugh! Caught red-footed. As the announcement came over the loud speaker “massive clean up needed in produce”, I stood there apologizing to every employee who came over to take care of that “massive clean up.”
I was finally able to leave the produce department slipping only once, hoping that no one in the check out lines would recognize me as the “watermelon lady” while wearing my oversized sunglasses. Clever, huh? I loaded the groceries into the trunk of my car, loaded myself into the driver’s seat and headed home.
Once home, I unloaded the groceries and set about making my fruit platter. As I sliced the watermelon, I could envision how beautiful this platter was going to look. The watermelon slices as flower petals, cherries, cantaloupe and kiwi placed in the centers of those flower petals to create the illusion of various flowers. Sigh. My eyes were getting watery at this picture dancing in my head… Or was it because I had just sliced my finger nearly taking off the top. Blood was running everywhere, so I guess it was a good thing that I was cutting watermelon — it wouldn’t show. I wrapped up my finger and continued working while trying to decide if I had time to get the top of my finger reattached. I figured my finger could wait until the next day and if still bleeding, I would take care of it then, maybe a little super glue. I finished my fruit platter and although it resembled melted crayon blobs more than flowers, I was happy it was done.
The next morning I awoke knowing that it was going to be a great day. Naturally I hit my wounded finger on the first thing I walked past causing the bleeding to start again. Oh well, I needed to get going and get that oh-so-beautiful platter to my parent’s home. I put the fruit into the back of my SUV and hit the road. I cranked up the music as Bob Dylan, one of my favorite songwriters, voice came through the speakers. I continued along a street which I drive daily, but I’m really not sure when that curb which juts out into the road was added. Hitting that curb not only brought me out of my reverie, but broke a tire rim along with the tire, and caused the destruction of my beautiful fruit design. Okay, maybe that looked better.
I had my SUV towed to the dealership to get the tire repaired. My brother picked me up and delivered me along with the rearranged fruit platter to my parent’s house. I would have been more upset than I was, but the whole incident was so ridiculous, how mad could I be?
By the time the rim was replaced and the tire changed, I was feeling better about life and caught a ride to the car dealership. I retrieved my car and happily set off for home. All I can say is, when it’s not your day, it’s not your day. Not far from my home, I was pulled over by a policeman. (Where are they when you really need them?) He approached my window, looked inside and asked me if I knew how fast I was driving. Did he expect me to say, “Well Officer, I was driving the speed limit, but when I saw you I decided to speed up.”?
While the policeman was standing to the rear of my car writing my ticket, I quickly searched my mind as to what my husband tells me every time he “gets out of a ticket”, which he somehow does every time he is pulled over. He loves to tell me how he “shows a little chest” regardless the gender of the officer. I thought huh, why not, and before the cop returned to my car window, I had “adjusted” my top in attempt to show a bit of my nonexistent sexy side.
The officer reached into my window and handed me a speeding ticket, asking me to please wait just one more minute. He started writing furiously again and then handed me a “fix-it” ticket. Pointing in the general direction of my bust, he said, “You might want to take care of that too.” and sauntered away.
I guess at this point it would be fair to say, it really was “not my day”. Sigh.
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Previously at PJ Lifestyle from Pamela Weiss:
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