Bad Day

Wikipedia entry for Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.



Plot (quoted from wikipedia)

From the moment he wakes up with gum in his hair, things just do not go Alexander's way. At breakfast, Alexander's brothers Nick and Anthony reach into their cereal boxes and pull out amazing prizes, while all Alexander ends up with is . . . cereal. His teacher doesn't like his drawing of an invisible castle, there is no dessert in his lunch, the dentist tells him he has a cavity, there is kissing on TV, and he has to wear his railroad train pajamas (he hates his railroad train pajamas). No wonder Alexander wants to move to Australia![1] The book ends with his mother's assurance that everyone has bad days, even people who live in Australia.


Yesterday was a bad day. It started out pretty good. My kids let me sleep in (i.e., get them breakfast and then I got to go back to sleep. Ah, the joys of self-sufficient three year olds).

I won't go into the gory details, but it was just a perfect storm of a day. This morning, in the shower at 4:30 (because my password expired so I couldn't set up my test from home) I realized - you know what? Everything that happened yesterday? It didn't have to be that way. I didn't have to flip out like that...to take things so seriously. To jump to a conclusion (the world is ending) like I did. Remember the whole concept that we can choose our attitude towards something? I think I forgot about that.

Sometimes bad days just seem better when fully embraced - as soon as you realize you're having a bad day it just makes life easier.

Anyway - if you're not familiar with this book by Judith Viorst, it rocks. We read it when I was younger, and I still love it. This is what I think of when I think of bad days - even today. Some days are like that.