Perhaps I have an overactive imagination. Probably no proper and mature adult should make up as many stories as I do, but let me tell you, a little imagination makes life so colorful! I love taking walks and inventing characters to live in all the houses I pass, or making up elaborate fairy tales on the spot for the kiddos (which sometimes backfires when they want to hear them retold and I can’t remember), or as I told you earlier this month, doing creative writing.

One of the most fun writing assignments I’ve ever done was writing out a day in my ideal life. Ideal location, job, housing situation, it was glorious. But then of course I would reread it and bellyache over the life I didn’t have, so I thought up a solution. I wrote out a terrible day in my ideal life, since I’m not so naive as to think it would be all sunshine and rainbows. And I have to tell you, it was even more fun to write than the original. Want to hear it? Okay, here goes.

A terrible day in my ideal life

I wake up at about 7:30 with a start, realizing I missed my alarm and I have to leave for work in ten minutes. My head feels fuzzy and dull from my late night the night before. I fly out of bed, throw on a somewhat wrinkled outfit that I don’t feel great in, brush my teeth, and fly out the door with no time for coffee or breakfast.

I trudge to work in the rain with my bent umbrella, and arrive somewhat damp and straggly. My workplace has coffee, but it’s Folgers. However, today I am desperate, so I choke down a mugful, and spill a little, leaving a blotch on my wrinkled shirt. Oh well.

Grumpy patients come in all day, full of insurance complaints, complaints about waiting too long, and grumbles about the weather and the traffic. I can’t find my necessary work files, and someone has stolen my favorite pen, leaving me with the one that squeaks and leaves blotches. A particularly rowdy patient tries to bite me during transport, and only manages to tear a button off my shirt, showing the world that I’m wearing my most awful underthings that day. Well, it can’t be helped. I throw on a sweater I have in my desk for such a time as this, and spend the rest of the day feeling even grumpier because I’m too hot.

Lunch time comes, and I realize I forgot to bring food in my haste. My coworker has brought a bowl of tuna something which smells awful, and the reception area smells for the rest of the day. I step outside to buy lunch, after checking my bank account to realize I can hardly afford it. So I get a slice of pizza from the cart nearby for $2 which tastes as terrible as the price implies. I get tomato sauce on my sweater.

Mid afternoon I take a bathroom break and cry a little to myself in the confines of the smelly stall, because all the patients are getting on my last nerve. I realize that I have a tomato skin stuck in my tooth since noon, which nobody has warned me about. I cry a little bit more, then put on my big girl pants and go out to finish the day.

Six o’clock finally comes, and I drag myself home on aching feet. The rain has stopped, and the world is a steamy, humid jungle, at about 90 degrees. I decide it’s worse to melt than to show my ugly clothes to the world, and take off my sweater to display my coffee stained, gaping shirt. Five minutes later, I pass the handsome man I’ve been seeing for several days at that bookstore. My heart sinks, as I realized what I must look like. He gives me the once over, and turns away in disdain.

I go home and decide on cereal for dinner with a sappy movie, to make me forget my sorrows. But I discover that my milk has soured, and the wifi isn’t working. So I eat a couple old bananas instead, and spend the evening paying my bills, stressing about the state of my finances, and doing laundry. A creepy guy at the laundromat eyes me, and I try to call my bff to come walk home with me, but she doesn’t reply. Of course.

I walk home by myself, and fortunately creep doesn’t follow. I decide to go to bed early to get this day over with, but see it’s already 11:30 somehow, and yes, I will be sleepy again tomorrow. I shower and crawl into bed, only to discover a large and crunchy cockroach under the sheets. After shuddering for five minutes, I curl up on my lumpy couch instead, and leave my Mom a voicemail, interspersed with tears. The day ends in fitful sleep, interrupted by the neighbor’s mariachi music going till two, the other neighbor’s teething kid screaming, and the street sweeper starting at ungodly hours.

Isn’t it just dreadful? I think the little trials in life are harder to endure in a way than one big trial, which is what makes this day so perfectly awful. But oh, did I have fun writing it, and every time I read back over it, it brings a smile to my face. So you see, even a terrible imagination can make life colorful. 😀