A DAY

My day started amazingly. Minimal traffic, and I timed it so that I had Barbara as my bus driver. This is an excellent thing. There are two who drive the route in the morning. One is friendly and one is not. Not that she is unfriendly, after all, she has been up since 3am, but her colleague is effusively, consistently, and aggressively warm and sunny. She looks each person in the eye, smiles and greets them with a “good morning!” Often, she uses their names because she has been at the university a long time and has built relationships with some riders. Basically, everyone loves her; she glows with kindness and spreads it to passengers (or at least to me). The closest thing I can compare her to is this awesome teacher who greets each kindergartener pleasantly and positively at the beginning of the day. Just. So. Pleasant. Who doesn’t need a shot of this joy first thing in the morning?? I know I sure wasn’t that friendly of a teacher.

But Emily, you say, your day did not start with your commute… And you are correct. I awoke at 4:00am, for no reason, and could not fall back asleep. This happens from time to time, and it makes me livid, because sleep is the best part of being a human. Lack of adequate sleep has ruined many a mood/day for me. Thus, I was a bit cranky/half dead on the drive in, but seeing Barbara reset my brain to look for the positive.

The positive continued, as it was a gorgeous blue-skied day, and I had the joy of walking a candidate interviewing at our office from one building to another. He was pleasant, and being outdoors during the workday was grand.

When I got back into the office, the hem of my dress caught on the desk drawer handle and ripped. Because of course it did.

Where on some days, this would be enough to make me sad, a combo of blue-sky mirth and sleepiness led me to shrug it off immediately.

Things were going swimmingly, and I was about to walk to the post office (one of my favorite activities) over my lunch break, when out of nowhere (technically out of the ceiling) FELL A COCKROACH. Into my lap. Because of course it did. Every woman I encountered asked me, “did you scream/shriek?”

I flailed a bit, but knew that my whole side of the office was out to lunch and there was no Pam to my Jim to witness and acknowledge what had just happened. As soon as the thing crawled off of me I ran to share the news and a few coworkers returned to my desk with me because it was somewhere nestled inside. Long story short, we used flashlights, a tape measure and a hammer to unsuccessfully peer behind the drawers and kill it.

Maybe it was the fatigue that prevented me from screaming/shrieking. Maybe it was the meditation working its magic and making me not react immediately and embarrassingly. Maybe it was the fatigue that shielded me from the potential day-ruination that is a filthy insect falling into my lap. At the end of the figurative day, it is just a bug and I am not one to freak out over bugs. The falling aspect and the creepy-crawly feeling knowing that it could be on my person again at any moment, though, were enough to gross me out. I thought often of the Dumb and Dumber scene where Lloyd is freaking out about the one-thing-after-another laundry list of problems he and Harry are facing.

I used my walk to the post office to cool down/reset. At the other end of that walk, I was met with a wave of nauseating heat and peeled off my wintry layers to have any hope at not pouring sweat during my wait in the post-office-in-December-length line. Also unsuccessful. I’m not one to complain about lines at the post office (because I really, honestly, truly love it and understand why so many people wanna be there), but the sweating. Eventually I got wise to the fact that I could skip the line because the other cashier’s register was cash only and I had cash! After a brief and pleasant interaction, I got to return to the outdoors and normalize my body temperature.

What I’m saying here is that there were many highs and lows. In my comatose state, I may not have possessed the energy to be angry, but I did try to drag myself back up to optimism.

At the end of the literal day, back at the cockroach-harboring desk, I heard a slight rustle. The dude was in my recycle bin, which made the catch and kill remarkably easy and mess-less. WE WON! We vanquished our foe.. and I no longer had to worry about (this) cockroach’s proximity to me. I refuse to think about any associates it may have living nearby.

It could have been a bad day, it could have been “one of those days,” but all in all, it was kind of a great day. Full and weird and unexpected and surprisingly fun (it’s not every day I get to swing a hammer at a cockroach). Not all the day’s events were positive, but I rolled with them and used them as opportunities to connect with the people I work with. There’s hope for me finding a fulfilling workplace yet. Next project: personal life… which is just a whole ceiling full of cucarachas.