Misadventures: My Worst Day Ever

You know, I was thinking today that I named this blog using the word "misadventures" but haven't blogged about many misadventures.  Granted, there was this weekend's couch situation, but that was about it as far as misadventures go.

So let me tell you a tale.  A tale of woe.  A tale of blood and rain and a twisted knee and a failed Calc test.

The tale of My Worst Day Ever.  And yes, it deserves the caps.

The year was 1998 and I was a fresh-faced lass of 18.  At the time I was a freshman at Temple University and working part-time in an office in Center City, Philadelphia.  It was spring semester and I had a Calculus class that was completely killing me.  On the day in question I had an exam which I was not looking forward to and then I had to go to work. 

I was looking super cute in a crisp white shirt, camel colored pants and brown heels which I was just breaking out for the first time.  It was an outfit I was very proud of.  I guess I figured if I couldn't pass my exam (and let me not lie to you - I knew I wouldn't), I would at least look nice for work.  Off I went to the bus stop...

...only to be promptly horrified when the bus pulled up and I saw my reflection in the windows.  Because what I didn't notice at home was that my blouse was almost totally see-through in daylight.  So right there I was mortified and self-conscious.  I had a whole day of walking around with a see-through blouse ahead of me.  But there was the bus, and here I was about to be late for school if I didn't get on.

In hindsight, I should have just gone home.

I went to school and took my exam, leaning over my desk the whole time so as to conceal my womanly parts (of course I was wearing a bra, but I'm not okay with having my lingerie on display for all to see).  And you know what? I ended up getting a 10 on that exam.

A 10.  Out of 100.  How I passed that class with a C I'll never understand.

Who gets a 10? I almost wished it was a 0.  A 10 means that even the professor was like "Whoa, I have to take some pity on this person and throw them a bone".  It was not a good time for me.

After the exam I left for work, having decided that I would simply walk around the office with file folders held up to my chest all day.  Yeah, that would fool them into not firing me for being dressed inappropriately.

Not long after arriving I was asked to make a hand delivery.  Now, let me clarify something here.  Hand deliveries were not new to me.  I used to make them all the time.  So you'd THINK I would have kept, I don't know, a pair of sneakers on hand for just such an occasion.  But not 18 year old me.  Oh, no.  I was stuck walking 10 blocks in what turned out to be the single most horrifically uncomfortable shoes ever created by man.  I'm serious when I say that I may as well have been walking barefoot the whole way - in fact, it probably would have been less painful.  That's how much agony I was in within just a couple of blocks.  Of course I didn't have any cash on me and had yet to discover the joys of the ATM card so I was stuck taking the Shoe Leather Express.

I wasn't really all about thinking when I was 18.

However, despite the pain, I got there in one piece...slowly, but in one piece.  Then it was time to walk BACK.

Of course by this time the day had become somewhat warmer, so I started to get a little bit sweaty on my return trip.  Still, my office building was in my sights and I was focused on making it there.  I was totally, 100% focused on just getting back to my chair, where I could take a load off of my aching, throbbing feet.

Perhaps I should have stopped focusing on my building and instead paid a lil' more attention to the sidewalk because OOPS! I tripped and fell, twisting my knee in the process.  I also managed to end up with tiny bloodstains on my camel colored pants from the skinning of my knee.  Of course people saw this happen and flew to my aid, but that just made me feel like more of a loser.  Now I was in pain all over, from my scraped hands to my knee to my feet.  And let's not forget about my bruised pride while we're at it!

But still I walked on.  Rather, limped on.

Once I got back to my sweet, cool office, I settled in with some clerical duty or other, while propping up my injured knee.  It was definitely swollen, but I did manage to get most of the blood off pants so all wasn't completely lost.

After an hour or so of lamenting my fate, I was asked to do the unthinkable.  They needed yet ANOTHER hand delivery.

I couldn't believe it.  Didn't they see me? Didn't they see the pain, the anguish? Didn't they have souls? Or at least some cab fare? I mean, seriously.  I look back on this day and wonder why in the heck they couldn't have taken some pity on me.  It wouldn't have cost them that much, either.

But no.  I had to walk.  So I walked.

This one wasn't so far as the one before so I figured it would be okay.  And as long as I took it slow, it really wasn't terrible - maybe my feet had numbed by then, I'm really not sure. 

Then I started my return journey.

You see, at some point during the course of the afternoon, what started off as a heart-breakingly beautiful spring day became a decidedly more cloudy one.  Cloudy and humid.  And when I left to walk back to my office, it became not only cloudy and humid but rainy.

And me with no umbrella.  And a blouse that was see-through when it was DRY.

I trudged back to my building, the rain mixing with my tears.  I mean, seriously.  Had anyone ever been as ill-used by fate as I?

Finally someone took pity on me when I opened that great big wooden door and staggered into our reception area.  "It's 4:30, why don't you leave early?" I was told.  Gee, thanks, I thought.  They probably figured I'd scare any clients who came through.  They were probably right, too.

Still, when I settled into my seat on the El, all seemed to be better.  The rain had stopped (of course it had) and things were clearing up.  The pain in my feet had moved into more of a numbness, which was a blessing really.  My knee had me limping horribly but it got me out of work early, and I'd been hurt worse before.  All I wanted to do was rest.

I removed the clip from my hair in order to more comfortably lean my head back against the wall of the train.  And then the most magical thing happened.  Somehow, the clip bounced OUT of my hand.  Landed on the floor.  Slid a few inches across the floor to the door.  And fell out of the train.

All while I reached for it in a kind of horrified slow motion.

But it was no use.  My hair clip was now the property of the area under the Spring Garden El station.

Looking back, I guess that's what finally broke me.  That darn hair clip.  I started laughing...quietly at first, then building.  But it wasn't mirthful laughter - more like the laughter of the insane.  I mean, really.  Let's recap the events of the day:

- Left the house in see-through clothing
- Failed an exam in an embarrassing fashion
- Walked many blocks in excruciating pain
- Fell in public, ruined pants, hurt knee, embarrassed self even more
- Treated everyone up and down 15th street to a wet t-shirt style peep show
- Lost hair clip in an amazing feat of hair clip hijinx, leaving wet hair hanging about face in a crazy lady style

And in case you're wondering, there's a gajillion crazy people riding the El so no one even noticed that I was laughing the laughter of the insane.

Then I had to hobble down, like, a million stairs once I got off the El because back then there were no escalators or elevators at my stop.  Par for the course.  But it was okay at that point - I just wanted to get home to my Mommy and have her hug me and tell me it was all over.

And I'm sure she would have hugged me and told me it was all over and maybe even poured me a refreshing beverage while I iced my knee.  If she wasn't so busy falling over laughing at me.  And to this day, every time I so much as MENTION My Worst Day Ever, she starts crying with mirth, begging me to tell the story, and saving the real gut-busting laughs for the part where the hair clip jump out of my hands and out the door of the train.

12 years later and I wonder if that clip is still under the station platform somewhere.  A casualty of my Worst Day Ever.