chaotic mortal

And you Had a Bad Day…

April 22nd, 2008. Published under Home, True Life. 1 Comment.

Talk about having a bad day. My poor father had one indeed.

He had just come home, and my mom was still out taking me to swimming practice.

We had received a notice from the neighborhood office about the weeds growing out in the cracks on our driveway. Honestly, they didn’t seem too many… until we saw the homes of other people.

Theirs were spotless clean, and so that afternoon my dad decided to do something about it.

He was about to get into the car to buy some weed-killer, but then he thought that using a bit of bleach would be easier.

Careful from the toilet-washing a few days ago that had burned a mark on his wrist, he even got a funnel, to aim correctly. He let Peanut, my dog, out, but he told him to stay back.

He finished the work, and no bleach spilled onto his gloved hands. Happy, he was just about to go in when my neighbor came driving up.

My dog, with the crazy giddy behavior to be extremely happy and crazy when someone else or my mom was around, actually stayed where he was. When the neighbor parked his car, however, he shot where he was and began licking him.

My dad shouted at my dog. “PEANUT, YOU GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!” Our neighbor was nice and we didn’t want him to bite or anything.

My neighbor, realizing my dad could take care of it, walked into his home as if Peanut wasn’t even there. Peanut, gladly, did not go in.

Before my dad could stop him, my mom came driving up. As soon as she parked, he shot up. My mom, not expecting him, dumped all of the dumpling juice she was holding (I had eaten it in the car on the way to swim practice) into a little pocket in the door.

This little pocket was extremely hard to clean, so my dad was very cross. Mad, he threw a bag of things in his hand towards the car in anger.

That bag of things was supposed to be all wood, so it shouldn’t have harmed Peanut or the car. However, there were a few metal things. When the bag was thrown, everything came pouring out.

Luckily, Peanut wasn’t hurt. Unluckily, my dad’s car was.

Now there is a big dent on the engine cover for the world to see, the paint chipping off a little bit.

After my dad picked up everything and cleaned out the pocket, he realized he had spilled a few drops of bleach on his shirt. He checked to see if the skin underneath was burning. It wasn’t.

His perfectly gray shirt, however, now had a few ugly splotches of white that looked like dripping paint where the bleach had bleached the color off.

And you had a bad day.

You didn’t know why.

You looking for the thing,

that will turn it around,

and you had a bad day.

David Powter, You had a Bad Day (song)