Worst Monday This Week
My Essay: Why Monday Was Awful, By Marguerite
Monday started out, much like your average slasher movie, on a suspiciously cheerful note. Paul and I had just spent a nice weekend languishing on the porch at the house on Shelter Island, pretending to be characters in a minor Fitzgerald story. That is, the part before the characters turn into symbols of Symbolism and the "foul dust that floats in the wake" of other more symbolic symbols, such as Gatsby's Green Light, which symbolizes the symbolism of Traffic Signals, and the corruption of Gatsby's Dream, which was also deeply symbolic.
For people who really aren't all that weathly, we spend a lot of our life, to appropriately borrow from good ol' F. Scott, in "the consoling proximity of millionaires." That is, if you substitute "annoying" for "consoling," because, depending on the day of the month, I'm lucky to qualify as a hundred-aire.
This proximity issue is much more by coincidence than design. For instance, I had absolutely no desire to move to Carnegie Hill, except that we happened to find a quasi-reasonable (by the absurd standards of New York City) apartment in this neighborhood. And the house on Shelter Island is a summer share - a rambling, ramshackle Victorian with hidden rooms and views of sailboats and a tennis court. It's possibly my dream house. Literally, in that it reminds me of that dream that almost every New Yorker has had. You know, the one where you realize there's a massive, hidden room in your tiny apartment, that you just never realized was there? Anyway, I ever find $3 million lying under a rock, I'm SO going to buy it and invite everyone over.
The house is actually owned by a friend-of-a-friend who's the former anchorman of a national weekly news program which will go unnamed, although I can say that it rhymes with "30/30". So in the summer, we reap the benefits of the place without having to go to the trouble of hosting a weekly news program ourselves. Which is good because I never seem to get around to doing that myself.
Anyway, Monday (so far, I'm failing my standardized test Expository Essay on the Worst Day Evah!). We were all relaxed, and I was an ever-so-slightly darker shade of beige, possibly even "medium light beige," which unfortunately is as close as my Scotch-Irish skin will ever come to tan.
When I get into work, our accountant, a Russian man named Vitali, comes over to my desk. "I get this yesterday," he says in his thick accent that makes him sound like a spy from some Robert Ludlum movie. It's a letter from the NYS Department of Taxation. It starts with "WHEREAS ..."
When a letter starts with "Whereas," and you don't happen to be working on an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, it's never a good thing.
As it turns out, I forgot to pay my NY State income taxes on a consulting assignment I had in 2001. If memory serves, and it clearly doesn't, I forgot to declare it. That is, I forgot, rather than "forgot." WHEREAS, they didn't send a letter to my current address, they could find my current employer, and told them to take the money out of my paycheck. So I called and paid the bill, which was just over $600, so not as bad as it could've been. But still, not as good as if I'd spent the money on a frivolous pair of shoes instead of giving it to the State of New York. But the point is, I learned a Very Valuable Lesson. Or something.
But unfortunately, that wasn't the last of the Valuable Lessons for one day. AT the same moment I was dealing with the NYS Dept. of Taxation, somewhere across town Paul was about to step in a hole in the sidewalk, thus managing to miss the 99% of the sidewalk space that is hole-free. As a result, he tripped and fell. Hard. On his left arm. Yep, the one that only recently healed from surgery/brokenness. So now he's worried it might have re-broken (although this is probably not the case) and somehow he has further concluded that he's going to have to have it amputated and will have to go around with a pirate hook. Which is really too bad, because Paul doesn't even like parrots.
Anyway, I got home that evening and realized I'd left my keys at work, in my other bag. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal; I'd just wait for Paul to come home, or call Amy and Brian or someone else nearby who has a copy of them. BUT, the locks had to be changed that weekened (another long, unhappy story). And Paul had given his keys to our friend Laura, so she could feed the cats.
So I walked 1.5 miles back to work, to get the keys. Normally, this would be the end of the story. But I'd forgotten that my security badge (which acts as a key to the building) had expired just TWO DAYS earlier, and I couldn't get a new one because the guy who makes the new ones was "en vacances." (It's the "mois d'août" and I work for the French...) AND it was 5:35 in the summer, so there was not one soul was left in the building. So I couldn't get in. AND I had two heavy bags of groceries, including freezer items. And it was 95 degrees. It was like in that horrible Seinfeld episode where they're trapped in the parking garage in Jersey. I take a taxi home and sit on the steps, waiting for Paul.
Dr. Zhivago, I mean, Paul, finally gets home, bruised and battered. Laura's girlfriend was home and had the keys, but they live on the Lower East side, which is 30 minutes away by cab. I hailed a cab.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't the Worst Day Ever. But it was definitely the Worst Monday This Week.
Monday started out, much like your average slasher movie, on a suspiciously cheerful note. Paul and I had just spent a nice weekend languishing on the porch at the house on Shelter Island, pretending to be characters in a minor Fitzgerald story. That is, the part before the characters turn into symbols of Symbolism and the "foul dust that floats in the wake" of other more symbolic symbols, such as Gatsby's Green Light, which symbolizes the symbolism of Traffic Signals, and the corruption of Gatsby's Dream, which was also deeply symbolic.
For people who really aren't all that weathly, we spend a lot of our life, to appropriately borrow from good ol' F. Scott, in "the consoling proximity of millionaires." That is, if you substitute "annoying" for "consoling," because, depending on the day of the month, I'm lucky to qualify as a hundred-aire.
This proximity issue is much more by coincidence than design. For instance, I had absolutely no desire to move to Carnegie Hill, except that we happened to find a quasi-reasonable (by the absurd standards of New York City) apartment in this neighborhood. And the house on Shelter Island is a summer share - a rambling, ramshackle Victorian with hidden rooms and views of sailboats and a tennis court. It's possibly my dream house. Literally, in that it reminds me of that dream that almost every New Yorker has had. You know, the one where you realize there's a massive, hidden room in your tiny apartment, that you just never realized was there? Anyway, I ever find $3 million lying under a rock, I'm SO going to buy it and invite everyone over.
The house is actually owned by a friend-of-a-friend who's the former anchorman of a national weekly news program which will go unnamed, although I can say that it rhymes with "30/30". So in the summer, we reap the benefits of the place without having to go to the trouble of hosting a weekly news program ourselves. Which is good because I never seem to get around to doing that myself.
Anyway, Monday (so far, I'm failing my standardized test Expository Essay on the Worst Day Evah!). We were all relaxed, and I was an ever-so-slightly darker shade of beige, possibly even "medium light beige," which unfortunately is as close as my Scotch-Irish skin will ever come to tan.
When I get into work, our accountant, a Russian man named Vitali, comes over to my desk. "I get this yesterday," he says in his thick accent that makes him sound like a spy from some Robert Ludlum movie. It's a letter from the NYS Department of Taxation. It starts with "WHEREAS ..."
When a letter starts with "Whereas," and you don't happen to be working on an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, it's never a good thing.
As it turns out, I forgot to pay my NY State income taxes on a consulting assignment I had in 2001. If memory serves, and it clearly doesn't, I forgot to declare it. That is, I forgot, rather than "forgot." WHEREAS, they didn't send a letter to my current address, they could find my current employer, and told them to take the money out of my paycheck. So I called and paid the bill, which was just over $600, so not as bad as it could've been. But still, not as good as if I'd spent the money on a frivolous pair of shoes instead of giving it to the State of New York. But the point is, I learned a Very Valuable Lesson. Or something.
But unfortunately, that wasn't the last of the Valuable Lessons for one day. AT the same moment I was dealing with the NYS Dept. of Taxation, somewhere across town Paul was about to step in a hole in the sidewalk, thus managing to miss the 99% of the sidewalk space that is hole-free. As a result, he tripped and fell. Hard. On his left arm. Yep, the one that only recently healed from surgery/brokenness. So now he's worried it might have re-broken (although this is probably not the case) and somehow he has further concluded that he's going to have to have it amputated and will have to go around with a pirate hook. Which is really too bad, because Paul doesn't even like parrots.
Anyway, I got home that evening and realized I'd left my keys at work, in my other bag. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal; I'd just wait for Paul to come home, or call Amy and Brian or someone else nearby who has a copy of them. BUT, the locks had to be changed that weekened (another long, unhappy story). And Paul had given his keys to our friend Laura, so she could feed the cats.
So I walked 1.5 miles back to work, to get the keys. Normally, this would be the end of the story. But I'd forgotten that my security badge (which acts as a key to the building) had expired just TWO DAYS earlier, and I couldn't get a new one because the guy who makes the new ones was "en vacances." (It's the "mois d'août" and I work for the French...) AND it was 5:35 in the summer, so there was not one soul was left in the building. So I couldn't get in. AND I had two heavy bags of groceries, including freezer items. And it was 95 degrees. It was like in that horrible Seinfeld episode where they're trapped in the parking garage in Jersey. I take a taxi home and sit on the steps, waiting for Paul.
Dr. Zhivago, I mean, Paul, finally gets home, bruised and battered. Laura's girlfriend was home and had the keys, but they live on the Lower East side, which is 30 minutes away by cab. I hailed a cab.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't the Worst Day Ever. But it was definitely the Worst Monday This Week.
posted by Marguerite at 9:06 AM
2 Comments:
Oh my God, I was laughing so hard. I think it's hilarious when people have bad days. Joke! Did your cat really poop in your science experiment? I have this horrible, yet funny mental picture.
And your bad day could probably win some kind of prize for bad days. Why does everything happen at once. Did you anger the kharma gods?
She still hasn't managed to tell us how she and Paul spent the weekend locked in the bedroom...
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