Worst Day Ever, Part 1

One time, in the third grade, our homework was to write a story about the "Worst Day Ever." It was supposed to teach expository writing skills or something, starting with an implied premise and providing supporting evidence. The teacher was neither surprized nor displeased when everyone's essay came out more or less the same (uniform mediocrity being the gold standard of American education).

The stories all started out with some combination of waking up late and/or missing the bus, followed by science projects eaten by the family doberman (or, in my case, my cat used my fictional working-model Volcano as a litterbox, thus ruining my even-more-fictional chances of winning first prize at the Science Fair), pop quizzes, and trips to the principal's office.

The only exception was the Cambodian refugee girl we'll call Sophy, whose story ended, "... and that's when we discovered that they were all dead."

Even with limited English, Sophy was always a wringer for "what America means to me" essay contests. And the Fire Safety essay contests, for some reason. I'm ashamed to admit that my 9-year-old self was a bit annoyed by this. True, her native village was burned to the ground, but it wasn't exactly because the Khymer Rouge was smoking in bed.

Our teacher looked a bit unnerved by Sophy's story, but couldn't exactly say that she was looking for something a little less ... authentic. "Were there any, uh, other days - maybe here in America - that were, uh, not so good?" Sophy thought, and took the note very well. "Ah, yes! For example, the day my brother is hit by car!" You could tell she was making a mental note to revise the story to reflect this happier time.

Being mostly-American kids who had grown up in comfortable suburbs, were utterly fascinated with Sophy's stories, the kind that are strangely, shamefully thrilling to people who have never experienced any real hardship or tradgedy. For most of us, our idea of hardship was having only two pairs of Nikes, even though our best friend had three pairs. Sure, many of us had experienced the loss of grandparents or older relatives, even parents in some cases, but none of us had had to flee from a burning village, knowing we would never be able to return.

So, when I say that yesterday was a "Worst Day Ever" story, I mean it in the "cat pooped in my model Volcano" way, rather than a "my entire family was killed and our ancestral village burned to rubble" sort of way.

I just think it's good to keep some perspective. This summer, I've somehow gotten into reading a lot of "beach reading" books about women who all seem to work in publishing and live in a spacious rent controlled apartment West Village or Central Park West, but who are nonetheless plagued by ennui, alternately due to to lack of dates/big thighs/bitchy boss, etc. On the book jackets, critics rave that they "speak for women everywhere." Which is true, assuming "everywhere" is confined to 10 floors in the Conde Nast building.

But still. I like reading these books, because it only takes about an hour to read each one, without even skimming or skipping, and then you get to say, "I read a book today!" and feel all smart. As if it makes up for all those Salman Rushdie books I could never quite finish. I think if the central character of Midnight's Children worked in publishing and had fat thighs, it would all be much easier to relate to. Maybe someone could give Mr. Rushdie's agent this note?

Anyway - this introduction became so convoluted that I don't have time to tell the story of why yesterday was a candidate for Worst Day Ever. Which actually references last weekend's tale of having to pee in a litterbox. I know what you're thinking, but absolutely NO alchohol was involved. Unfortunately.