Hell Friday

Most people have their "off" days once in a while. You know the feeling: everything that has a possibility of embarrassing you or revealing your secret addition to Yu-Gi-Oh! cards is given a starring role. I tend to experience these days during the beginning of the week, which is conveniently referred to as a "Blue Monday." This week's off day wasn't on schedule. Instead, I had a "Blue Friday," but I would go with the title "Hell Friday."

I had a letter to mail in the morning, so I carried it with me on my way to the bus stop. By the time I realized that I had walked past the mailbox without mailing the letter, I was standing next to three kids that were about to board the school bus. "Oh well," I figured. "I can just mail it at school."

A few hours later, I asked the school secretaries to mail my letter. It wasn't a problem at all. "As long as it's stamped," they said, but I had already handed my letter to them. When they glanced up on me with a Well Aren't You Smart-expression, I figured it wasn't going to be a good day. I was carrying around a wet unstamped letter. I put it in a shopping bag that I had been carrying around. The bag had some cans of beans for a local charity.

We had to write a boring essay during Spanish class. We were supposed to use about twelve thousand verb tenses, but I decided that two would be sufficient. The writing process went something like the ultra-fluent paragraph below: (I've translated it for your enjoyment).

If I encounter a woman one day, I want it to be enjoyable and pleasing. It would have a character of this things, such as comical and intelligence. I think these coconuts--

As soon as I realized I had just wrote the Spanish word for 'coconuts' in place of the word that meant 'things,' I couldn't help laughing. It was one of those I Can't Help Laughing At This Stupid Mistake I've Just Made-laughs. And that was how I choked on my gum. I was laughing so hard that the vacuum suck of my mouth pushed a small piece of winter mint gum right down into my throat. It stayed there collecting dust while I keeled over the side of my desk in hopes of spitting it out. At this point, the entire Spanish class had gotten out of their seats. They were frightened. "Benito! Benito! Are you okay!?" screamed the teacher. Later that day, she told me that her heart had doubled in rate and that it didn't slow down until the end of the day. My little coconut error had put the class in panic.

After I left that class with an inch of gum base in my stomach, I figured I would drop off my cans to the charity box. They were sugar-free, sodium-free, fat-free, organic black beans. Mother couldn't wait to get rid of them. In one way, I was glad to have gotten rid of that bag.

On the other hand, I wasn't.

After gym, I seemed to be under the impression that the day was over. I went to my locker, put on my jacket, got my umbrella, packed up my books, and went outside to wait for this buses. "That's weird," I thought to myself. I began worrying that I had missed the buses. I asked a friend if this was the case:

Ben: Where are the buses?
Friend: Ben.
Ben: What?
Friend: It's sixth period.

When the buses actually came at 2:20, I got onto the wrong bus. This became obvious when I started asking every single person, "Are you new?"

At home, I decided to call Blockbuster customer service to check on a complaint I had filed. I waited on hold for fifteen minutes and then got disconnected. Twenty minutes later, I got a rude woman who had no idea how to handle my situation. When I called back with the intent of being connected to a different agent, even after waiting forty minutes, I was magically connected to the same person. Wonderful...

Then I fell asleep in my jeans without brushing my teeth or taking allergy medicine, with the lights on and the doors open.

I can't wait until Monday!