Even in Hell the peasant will have to serve the landlord, for, while the landlord is boiling in a cauldron the peasant will have to put wood under it.

I tried to go to sleep early last night but there was a fire alarm going off all night in the vacant house across the street and I woke up with a headache and my fan had stopped working and I forgot to take my Zoloft and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

At breakfast Seg ate the last banana on his cereal and Primo cried because he wanted banana in his Cheerios and Terzo fed the dog his Puffins which is going to give him gas.

I think I’ll move to Australia.

Four times I told Primo to put his socks and shoes on, and at 835 when everyone else was ready to leave he still only had one sock on and I yelled at him so loudly the neighbors must have heard. It made The Baby cry.

I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

The Baby wouldn’t get in his carseat because he didn’t like his shorts.

At the preschool Seg couldn’t open the door and I had to call the teacher on my cell phone to let him in because I couldn’t leave the other boys in the running car by themselves.

At Paxson Primo pouted because I had to pack his lunch in his dorky turquoise lunch box and not his cool grey lunchbox because he’d left his cool grey lunchbox at school yesterday. Who needs lunch anyway? All I need is a drink.
I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

I could tell because my friend E’s son said to me that my car was as filthy as my house, and I needed to vacuum my car too.
I hope you trip on your shoelaces, I said.
I hope you drop your Rice Krispie treat, and all the dog hair in the car gets all over the marshmallow and you can’t eat it, I said.
I hope it lands in Australia. (Ok, I didn’t say ANY of those things.)

Seg got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple for lunch, and The Baby got leftover rice pilaf and grilled chicken for his lunch, but all I got was two stupid poached eggs on toast because guess whose stomach couldn’t handle anything else?
It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

That’s what it was, because when we returned from the Cheese Expedition, that alarm was still going off and my headache got worse and I hadn’t had nearly enough caffeine anyway. I called the landlord but his secretary said he’d gone to Australia. (Not really.)

At naptime The Baby sat in his crib and threw cars around, and Seg lay in his bed and sang tunelessly to himself for forty-five minutes, and the dog lay in the hallway and panted at me. And when I finally fell asleep, I slept through my alarm and I am supposed to pick Primo up at 330 and it was already a quarter to four and my poor guy was sitting patiently in the school office waiting for me and I had left the house in such a rush I had no bra on and grotty flip-flops and I hadn’t brushed my hair and I looked like one of those mothers you see on the news who have their children taken away by CYS.
I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I told everybody.
No one even answered. (They only wanted to know what was for snack.)

So then we went home and I made macaroni and cheese for the boys for supper, and tuna macaroni salad and cucumber sambal with Italian bread for H for supper, and all I could even consider eating was another (goddamn) poached egg.
Well, I made one but I still couldn’t eat it.

When H came home, the boys were screaming at each other, and The Baby was covered in mud from the backyard, and the dog wanted a walk, and I was frantically trying to edit a paper I had a deadline on. I didn’t even come close to finishing, and H clearly had second thoughts about having come home at all.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Seg wanted his Magnemite Poekmon card and I couldn’t find his Magnemite Pokemon card.

It was bath night, and I hate bath night.

The lights were too bright, the boy were too loud, the air conditioner was making an ominous rattling sound, and Seg made me read a Pokemon book for story. I hate Pokemon books.

When I finally went to bed (with my computer and my book), my wireless was out and the cats were chasing each other like lunatics all over the second floor.

Primo came crying into my room because he’s scared of tsunamis, and wanted me to come sleep with him.

It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

My mom’s gone but I am sure Suse or Lazy Cow would say that some days are like that.

Even in Australia.