This is not a good day.

It all began this morning when, at 8:45am, I was rudely awakened by the sounds of a lawnmower outside my bedroom window. This was quickly followed by loud and boisterous conversations held by the people doing the yard work in the back of my apartment building. This all wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that my backyard is a parking lot and the grass they were so diligently mowing was only eight feet square. Of course, when they were done mowing they had to break out the big, obnoxiously loud, hot air blower.

And the hedge trimmer. We must not forget the horrid hedge trimmer.

After numerous attempts to ignore the noise and recapture my quickly evaporating dream of decadent sexual fulfillment, I decided to get up and eat some breakfast. As I walked from my bedroom to the kitchen I somehow managed to stub my toe, knock my elbow right in the funny bone and then, as I was trying to rub both my elbow and my toe at the same time while walking to the kitchen, I hit my head on a doorknob.

Oh sure, it sounds funny now…

After cursing the door, myself and the world in general, I managed to make it to the kitchen without further incident. Once there, I decided to have some Frosted Flakes for breakfast and got a bowl from the cupboard and the milk out of the fridge. It was at this point that my world came crashing down around my ears as the universe pointed its immensely huge, yet somehow stubby, finger at me and laughed.

You see, I began pouring the milk into the bowl before putting in the cereal.

As any cereal connoisseur can attest, pouring milk into the bowl first is completely against the natural order of things. It’s like trying to put on your socks before putting on your underwear, it simply isn’t done in polite society. For some unfathomable reason however, I didn’t notice until I began pouring the cereal into the bowl and perhaps four flakes made it in and the rest spilled over onto the counter. It was at that point that I should have just cursed the heavens above, poured the whole mess down the toilet and gone back to bed until Saturday. But no, shrugging to myself in a martyr-like fashion I decided to sweep the cereal into the bowl, pushing the flakes down with the back of my spoon as necessary, and eat my breakfast. I know it was against the rules, and I knew I was defying nature, but I figured cereal is cereal and anyway, what’s the worst that could happen?

And so, now I’ve got a cut on my tongue.

I didn’t want to talk to him.

In any other situation, at any other time, I wouldn’t have. I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me and neither of us ever expected to meet again in the future. But since I was standing behind him while waiting to use the men’s room at the restaurant, and I had made the mistake of making eye contact, manly etiquette demanded at least a token attempt at conversation.

Heaving a mighty sigh in my mind, I fired the first salvo.

“Hot day.”

“Yep.”

“Mmm, mmm.”

And that should have been it. We should have just looked at each other for an awkward moment and then gone about our pathetic lives as if that conversation had never happened. But, in what I can only assume was a desperate attempt to escape from my presence, he smiled at me, walked over to the bathroom door and jiggled the handle!

What the…?

I was flabbergasted. Apparently, even though I had only spoken two words to him thus far, he had already determined that I was so terminally boring that he needed to get away from me or he would die. He was even willing to disturb whoever was in the bathroom to do it. I’m surprised he didn’t begin banging on the door and shouting, “Hurry up! I’ve got to go peepee and this guy scares me!”

His uncouth actions demanded a response.

“Been waiting long?”

“A couple of minutes now.”

“Gotta go pretty bad, huh?”

“Oh… uh, yeah.”

At that point, just as I was ready to get all Columbo on his ass, the door opened and a young female came out of the bathroom. Remember, this was a bathroom in a nice restaurant and even though I know that sometimes it’s necessary to cross gender lines in public facilities, neither of us were prepared to see a girl come out of the men’s room when the women’s room was right next door.

Especially when it was vacant and we were waiting in line.

As she walked past the guy ahead of me, I saw a look of repulsion cross his face. I remember thinking to myself that the women’s room might have been occupied earlier and that just because she was using the men’s room was no reason for this guy to act that way. I mean, it might be a social faux pas, but that certainly wasn’t any reason to look at her as if she were Quasimodo’s ugly step-sister.

At least, that’s what I thought until the smell hit me.

Now, I guess on some intellectual level I’ve always understood that women must have smelly poo. And sometimes, when they’re not feeling well or something, I’m sure their poo can smell as bad as mine after a night of eating my infamous Nuclear Tacos of Gastrointestinal Destruction. But physically and emotionally, I was completely unprepared for the nasal assault that emanated from this poor woman as she passed me in that narrow corridor. My gag reflex was almost overpowering and it was only by reaching down into the depths of my soul that I found the inner strength to hold back my fast-rising, half digested breakfast.

Even still, when I swallowed I could taste eggs.

When I thought it was safe to breath again, I turned back towards the bathroom to wait my turn and found the guy standing in the open doorway. By the slump in his shoulders I could tell he was distraught and defeated by whatever awaited him within. After a moment or two of watching him just stand there I had to know what was holding him back. Looking over his shoulder into the bathroom I let out a low whistle.

“Damn.” I said in disgusted awe, “That is just foul.”

“Yeah,” he replied with revulsion. “I can’t believe she didn’t flush.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“Dude, you jiggled the handle.”

“Oh. Son of a bitch.”

With that, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and entered the room. I’ll bet that he never jiggles the handle again for the rest of his life.

I know I won’t.