Comments (101)

1. I have arthritis and often spend all day in pain, and this story from the local paper a few years ago always reminds me that some one is probably having a worse day.

   It seems the police were called to a domestic dispute (between two gay men). One of the men stabbed the other, and in an effort to escape further harm had run out of the apartment and into the street, where he was hit by a car. Meanwhile, the lover who had stabbed him still upset lit the apartment on fire.

   just remember if you are not the first story on the news your day really isn’t that bad, and as long as you aren’t the president you probably won’t be the lead story two days in a row.

   posted by Steve on 10-3-2007 at 4:11 am

2. I love Charlie Brown because I so relate to him. Just recently I won a VCR/DVD recorder. I was dancing around the house because I’ve never won anything before (ok, maybe a free pepsi or bag or chips). Anyway, I picked up my prize, valued at over $200 and took it home. I carefully unpacked it, read the instructions, and hooked it up. I couldn’t wait to pop in a movie and watch it. But alas, the darn thing was broken. Good grief! If it wasn’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.

   posted by Carol on 10-3-2007 at 4:35 am

3. My mother loves turtles. Specifically, she feels the need to help little turtles trying to cross the road. When my brother and I were little, she used to let us help her “save the turtles.” Just a few years ago, I was home from college and we were driving into town and she abruptly pulled over the side of the road. Sure enough, there was a dinner plate-sized turtle attempting to cross the road.
   She forced me to get out and help the turtle, but just as I was bending over to pick it up, I heard a car coming over the hill. I ran to the side of the road, and as the car passed, it hit the side of the turtle shell and sent it flying (at a great speed) toward my head. I had to dive Superman style into the ditch.
   When I got up, what was my mother’s comment? “Go see if the turtle is okay.” Good grief.

   posted by Cole on 10-3-2007 at 6:26 am

4. I think I’ve got a pretty Charlie Brown-esque lifestyle, here is a pretty good one…

   So I thought I was with the perfect girl… we had just both graduated college, she went to South America for a couple of months and I had started work at an engineering company. We kept in contact all the way until she finally came back state side to Boston.

   The following weekend, I went to go visit her… a nice 4 hour or so hike from where I live. It was basically the most awkward and aweful few days of my life where she treated me like a creep and told me she regretted everything we ever did.

   I leave Sunday afternoon. I developed pretty severe sleeping problems after graduation but was on medication for it… however, the medication is not always perfect. About half way on my way home from Boston, I fall asleep at the wheel on I-90 on cruise control… when I come through, I’m in the middle lane (there is no middle lane…) and have to jerk my wheel to avoid from hitting another car.

   I feel my car lose control and my short life flashes before my eyes… I spin out into a ditch and park at an 80 degree angle in the grass…. I try to pull forward, sure enough I am cpmpletely stuck.

   Roadside assistance stops by about 2 min later to tell me an officer is coming… the officer comes and gives me not one, but 2 tests for a concussion. I am pulled out of the ditch about a half hour later (Thanks Triple A!) and go on my marry way with chunks of grass hanging off my car everywhere.

   I tell all my coworkers about this and they laugh at my tale of woo and car accidents, I made it out safely and continue my life… however 2 weeks later I make another bad driving mistake and run into a guard rail and completely get my bumper ripped off! So for about 2 months I drove around with a bumperless car with chunks of grass speradically hanging off of it. Good Grief!

   posted by Dan on 10-3-2007 at 6:37 am

5. I have had some whoppers in my time, including one that started with me getting hit in the head with the paper as I was locking my front door one morning. But, this is the real kicker. My husband and I had been a little tight on money for awhile and I had been putting off about $600 in repairs. I had gotten most of the repairs done the week before my bad day, but I had one left that day. I took it in that morning and it was ready at noon so I picked it up over lunch and enjoyed the smooth quiet ride of a well maintained vehicle. In fact, I had that thought in my mind as I was driving home from class that night in the rain when a car pulled out about 20 feet in front of me. Needless to say, the car was totaled. $600 in repairs down the tubes.

   posted by J.M. on 10-3-2007 at 6:38 am

6. I thought one of the saddest things about Charles Schulz’s life was that he died right after he retired. I don’t think it was even two months from his last new strip to his death.

   posted by Leslie on 10-3-2007 at 6:47 am

7. I awoke this morning to another landscape of death. I have no idea how there are that many diabetic hummingbirds where I live.

   posted by Jeremiah on 10-3-2007 at 6:48 am

8. Wasn’t it Charles Schulz who said something to the extent of…The worst feeling in the world is waking up at 6:59 when your alarm is set for 7:00. ?

   posted by CassiusClay on 10-3-2007 at 6:56 am

9. I purchased my first home in the Summer of 2005, while Katrina was bearing down on New Orleans (My house is in SE Texas). At closing the eye was still in the Gulf, since the Hurricane was still out there they would not sell me flood insurance at closing, they told me to wait until Katrina was done and then purchase, but there would be a 30 day waiting period between the purchase and it taking effect.

   Big deal I thought, another hurricane won’t hit Texas in a month. After I finally purchased it, a couple weeks later Hurricane Rita hit the Texas coast.

   posted by Witty Nickname on 10-3-2007 at 7:11 am

10. Three years ago, my wife was eight and a half months pregnant and I learned that a close friend of mine died. I found out the next day that, during a conversation my friend had with his brother the previous week, he told his brother that if anything were to ever happen, he wanted me to give the eulogy. The day of the funeral, I delivered a tear-filled eulogy and felt a sense of peace with myself. After the burial, I drove home to my wife looking forward to a quiet day recollecting myself. On the ride home, my mother called to tell me my grandfather died. He was 85 and lived a good life, but his death still hurt. Later that night, I got another phone call, this time from my college roomate’s sister telling me that he had died. The saying that bad things happen in 3’s, but I never expected it all to come to fruition the same day.

    PS: My wife and I had a beautiful, healthy baby girl.

    posted by Darren on 10-3-2007 at 7:24 am

11. In college in the early 90’s my wife (GF at the time)drove an old (70’s) thunderbird — a real beater she bought from an uncle for $300 or something. It was during finals and she was under a lot of stress, plus recently had a job interview that didn’t go so well. She was in one of those ‘the world is crumbling around me’ modes. We were sitting in a parking lot in her car and she was having a breakdown moment — her head on the steering wheel and sobbing “I can’t take it. What else could go wrong?”; as if on cue, the upholstry lining from the roof of the car unattached on the driver’s side and gently floated down and landed on her head. I felt terrible for her, but it was the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Very Charlie Brown. It’s one of those things that you couldn’t write, because no one would believe it — just ‘too perfect’. Comedy certainly does come from pain.

    posted by EV on 10-3-2007 at 7:28 am

12. For my 12th birthday, my parents took me on a trip to Panama City, Florida. Well my whole life, I’ve been afraid of the dark waters in the ocean- where you can’t see the bottom. So to get me out of the house so that she could put together a little “surprise party”, my mom convinced my uncle to take me out on a wave-runner. Well, because of my fear, they had to spend about an hour talking me into it, and I still wasn’t completely comfortable with the idea. So we get out on the wave-runner, and I’m actually having a good time. My uncle then decides to take a pretty long trip out to one of the islands so that I can collect some shells.

    As soon as we get to the shallower water around the island though, the waverunner sucks some of the seaweed into the motor- which promptly stops running. So my uncle gets the BRILLIANT idea that we’ll swim the whole way back to the launch, pushing the waverunner. So that ends up taking about 3 hours. So needless to say- I ended up completely sunburnt, a bit dehydrated, losing all my shells, and missing my own birthday party. But hey- I suppose I also overcame my fear of dark water though after 3 hours in it…. And I guess it WAS my most memorable birthday ever.

    posted by Andrea Grossman on 10-3-2007 at 7:34 am

13. We had to have our beloved 16 year-old Siberian Husky, Chaos, put to sleep on my birthday two years ago. I can’t think of anything that stinks worse.

    posted by Angie on 10-3-2007 at 7:40 am

14. It began as a day like any other. I rose out of bed in the pre-dawn hours, turned on my table lamp and stretched. My dog, still wishing to sleep at the foot of my bed, gave me a baleful glare and stuck his head back under the covers.

    “Today is going to be a great day,” I said, grinning at him. He snorted.

    Several years ago, I’d been referred to a life-coach of sorts. My academic counselor at college thought I was too depressing and suggested I have my attitude adjusted. From this day forward, I start out every morning with a grin and the phrase, “Today is going to be a great day.”

    It hasn’t helped yet, but it might, some day.

    After coaxing the dog out from under the covers, I went into the kitchen and turned on my coffee maker. Then, I got dressed and put the reluctant dog on his leash, taking him out of the apartment into the sprinkler-dampened world. He stopped before his paws touched the grass, looking up at the sky and snorting, then giving me a look that could only be described as exasperated.

    “What?” I asked him, following his lead and looking up. “It’s a little cloudy, sure, but there’s a nice breeze for a change. You can handle wet feet from the sprinklers.”

    He snorted again and lowered his head in resignation, leading the way out to what could only be our inevitable doom.

    The dog walk area is a good distance from my apartment. This has never bothered me. It’s nice to get a little exercise now and again. I stood there, waiting for my dog to find the perfect spot, a little baggy in my hand, enjoying the dog-poo scented breeze that wafted up from the grass.

    I think I’m the only one that remembers the little baggies.

    A crack of thunder that sounded remarkably like a laugh suddenly tore through the air. I jumped and looked up just in time to see the rain come pelting down. With a yelp, I started to run for cover in one direction. My dog chose a different direction.

    As his leash tugged on my arm, I slipped and fell backwards onto the poo-scented grass, rain falling in torrents around me.

    My dog took this opportunity to jump on my chest and give me a look that said, “See? I told you!”

    “Yeah, yeah,” I said, pushing him off. I stood up, now soaked to the skin and covered in, oh, let’s say, mud. I tugged on my dog’s leash. “Let’s head this way together, ok?”

    We reached the apartment, soaked, bruised, but otherwise ok. I dried the dog off with a towel and he went to go sleep on the couch. I went to my room to change my clothes - again. Staring at myself in the mirror, I forced another grin as I brushed my teeth and said, “Today is *going* to be a *great* day.” If I believed it, it would come true, I was sure of it.

    Clean and dry, I went into the kitchen to get my coffee. I rinsed away the minty-freshness of my mouth with a little Columbian and was looking forward to popping open my laptop and doing my daily tour of my favorite blogs, web comics, forums, and, of course, mental_floss. As I walked towards the couch, I stepped on a conveniently placed pink tennis ball and hit the floor, coffee soaking my clean slacks and my white shirt.

    My dog was staring at my from his spot on the couch, not even getting up to chase the tennis ball that went rolling away across the floor. If he possessed the ability to smirk, I sure that’s the look I would have been getting. Instead, he just stared.

    “Ok,” I said, gingerly standing up. “I deserved that for not listening to you earlier.” He snorted and rolled over on his back, waving his paws in the air.

    My sister says I humanize my dog too much. I think she only says that because she doesn’t own one. When a person doesn’t own a dog as conniving as mine, they really can’t understand.

    Unperturbed, still convinced today was going to be a great day, darn it, I went and changed my clothes for the third time that day. Thankfully, I had done laundry not too long ago, otherwise I’d be out of luck.

    Time was slipping away from me. I had to leave for work. That meant I wouldn’t get to check out the web or drink my coffee, but that was okay. There was always tomorrow, which would also be a great day, darn it.

    Hurrying out the door, I was pleasantly surprised to see the rain had slowed to a trickle. I walked to my car with a spring in my step, putting my foot on the curb with the intention of leaping off of it like Gene Kelly. After all, today was going to be a *great* day.

    You know that paint they use to mark fire zones? That red paint with the white lettering that says, “Fire Zone - Do Not Park”? It should really say, “Fire Zone - Do Not Park - Slippery When Wet”.

    With something less than the grace of Gene Kelly and more of the grace of Steve Martin, I flew through the air, heading face first into the concrete and asphalt. The rain began to fall in sheets once again. I laid there on the ground, looking at the rainbows that danced along the top of the puddles. In my pain-filled mind, I thought it looked kinda pretty, until I realized it was due to oil leaking out of my car.

    A woman and her child walked past me with their umbrella. I grinned at them when they stopped to stare, but my grin must have been more maniacal than I thought because the mother grabbed the little girl’s hand and hurried away. I ignored their rudeness and continued grinning anyway. Didn’t the realize today was going to be a great day? Didn’t they?!

    Standing up, I brushed away my shame to reveal what little dignity I still retained and somehow heard, over the pouring rain and thunder, the faint tinkling of glass. I reached my hand into my front pocket and my fingers brushed little shards of glass and twisted metal. My grin grew wider.

    I need my glasses to drive. I can’t see worth a darn without them. I put them in my pocket as I walked out to the my car so they wouldn’t get wet. Perfectly logical.

    Pulling out the mangled metal frames, I squinted at them through the falling rain and grinned. Turning, I started to whistle a happy little tune as I walked back to the apartment. Today was a great day. Great! Perfect! Couldn’t get any better!

    My dog was still on his back when I walked back in the door and he stared at me upside down with his head hanging off the edge of the couch. As I tossed my broken glasses on the coffee table, he rolled off the couch and walked over to me, looking up. I sat down on the floor and he licked my face.

    We have our disagreements from time to time, but my dog and I do have an understanding about each other.

    Scratching him behind the ears, I stood up and got changed - again - before hurrying out of the apartment. The drive to work was difficult and slow-going, the rain and my lousy vision making it a difficult process. Fortunately, I don’t live that far away from the office.

    When I got out of the car, I let myself get soaked, since I’d left my umbrella at home, and let myself in through the security door. My manager was standing near the break room and he smiled (I think - hard to tell when everything is a fuzzy blur) and boomed, “Good morning, Stephanie! How is your day going?”

    “It’s great!” I said with a grin of my own.

    “Perfect!” he said, then pulled some kind of magic trick. A three-inch stack of papers suddenly appeared in his hand and was immediately transferred to my own. “I need you to build a database and enter all of this stuff into it so that we can compile a report for R. G. up in K.C. We were supposed to be doing it all along, but somebody forgot, so it needs to be done, oh, before lunch.”

    “No problem!” I said, dripping away toward my office.

    Best day ever.

    posted by Stephanie on 10-3-2007 at 7:42 am

15. I too had a “little red-haired girl” I was constantly trying to impress. I thought of myself as fairly witty and knew it was only a question of time before she too would see my brilliance and return the affection I felt for her.
    My opportunity came in Algebra one afternoon. The teacher was out of the room and I saw it as opportunity to dazzle. I was cracking wise, making with the clever comments and generally holding forth to my audeince of one, when I realized she was smiling and then laughing. “I’m doing it!! I thought. “She’s starting to really like me.” Finally after what seemed like several minutes of my best material. She smiled and stopped me..”Daryl,” she said, “Your nose is bleeding.”
    If that’s not a Charlie Brown moment, I don’t know the meaning of the phrase.

    posted by Daryl C. on 10-3-2007 at 7:48 am

16. Coming back from a trip to visit family in Seattle, we awake at 4 a.m., get our boys (ages 6 and 7 at the time) up and head to the airport, where we drop the rental car off and arrive at the airport only to find out that the flight has been cancelled. Sit in the airport for five hours, finally arrive in D.C. at 11 p.m. Get dropped off in the parking lot where my husband suddenly realizes he cannot remember where he parked the car. Sit waiting for him to jog around rows and rows of cars for an hour. Find the car - go to a gas station and I take our boys in to use the restroom and grab a snack (since of course neither flight offered anything other than peanuts). Husband stays outside to fill up the car. While he is outside, the cashiers close and lock the store to count the money so we are locked in and dad is locked out (having the need to use the restroom himself at this point). Finally get home to Richmond around 2 in the a.m. to find that husband’s car has been towed because of street cleaning while we are gone. All true - don’t think even Charles himself could write a strip that pathetic. Hopefully it means we are not due for any more bad luck until 2027 or so.

    posted by Sam on 10-3-2007 at 7:51 am

17. I grew up in Cincinnati but went away to Wash U St Louis. When I was there, the Cincinnati Bengals made it to the Super Bowl. I was all set to watch the game in the dorm with all my friends.

    When I got up that morning, I went to the bathroom and discovered blood in my urine.
    My roommate was an EMT and advised me to go to the hospital. It turns out that I had my first ever kidney stone.

    I spent all day drinking juice, feeling generally miserable as I tried to pass the stone through a strainer. Eventually it passed and I was able to get back to school.

    I returned to find my team, the Bengals leading late in the game. The only part of the game I got to see was the 49ers having one last possession where they won the game. Good grief.

    posted by Scott from Cincy on 10-3-2007 at 8:01 am

18. Last Valentine’s Day was the day the doctors decided to tell me that we had to find a place to take my dad because they couldn’t treat him anymore for his lung cancer, which had spread throughout his body. I had to go tell my dad, who didn’t understand because the cancer had spread to his brain and was making him crazy. And then I had to get in the car and drive over to my parent’s house to tell my mom. On Valentine’s Day. That her husband of close to 50 years of marriage was going to die, and soon. Happy Valentines Day.

    That beats the three years earlier, where my mom collapsed after we had all gone out to dinner on my birthday. We take her to the hospital in an ambulance, where she tells the doctor she’d been diagnosed with leukemia three years prior and hadn’t told us. And she still has it and it’s never going away. Happy Birthday to me.

    Oh, and 10 days after I moved with my husband into our first house, we had our first child. And two weeks later he was laid off, with a new child and house payments. And two weeks after that, September 11th happened.

    I’ll take a normal day over any freakin’ “special” one.

    posted by Karyn on 10-3-2007 at 8:16 am

19. I love Charles Schultz, what a great article! Won’t be long before the Great Pumpkin is on..I wonder what Schultz thought of the animated version of his strip?

    As for the bad luck..

    How about the junior high ski trip when I got stuck on the chairlift? A toggle from my coat had lodged in the bench seat, and there I dangled-almost ready to soar back down the (black diamond!) mountain. Right in front of all my 13-year-old class mates-they can be so cruel…so cruel. ;) They had to stop the whole works and the operator had to come pick me off the lift. Oh the shame!!

    Or how about getting locked out of my hotel room on my wedding night; my groom in his shorts and I in my jammies? Let me try to make this brief: we went out for a smoke, got locked out, no one was around, the front desk was closed, my groom put his arm through the window trying to push it open, (it was a crank-style window), and cut his arm very badly.

    I had to ask a strange Domino’s delivery teenager to drive me to the place where my entire wedding party were still carrying on, borrow my mom’s car and go pick up my bleeding groom. All this in my pajamas, barefoot, and a freshly let-down-up-do. I probably still had hairpins flying out of my head. LOL I must have looked insane!!

    I spent my wedding night holding a towel to my new husband’s bloody arm, barely sleeping-but then dreaming he was bleeding to death. I took him to the ER the next day, 10 stitches. And we had to pay $130 for the window we broke at the hotel. LOL We were laughing about it the next day, but at the time it was awful!!

    posted by mrs.djs on 10-3-2007 at 9:29 am

20. Back when I was a child and lived out in the country, my mom sent me over to the neighbors house (1/2 a mile away) to get a sack of flour.

    As I was riding my bicycle back home I crashed into a mud puddle, then accidentely ripped open the bag trying to salvage it. I rose the rest of the way home a wet and floury mess.

    My arrival was met with laughter (I didn’t find it funny) and a polariod was taken. This horrible picture still makes an appearance now and again to embarrass me.

    posted by Jason! on 10-3-2007 at 9:40 am

21. My birthday is 9/11. I spent my 21st birthday in front of the TV, and instead of cake, a friend brought over frosties from Wendys and we watched TV and cried.

    posted by Jenny on 10-3-2007 at 9:53 am

22. When I was in 5th grade, I wanted, more than anything else, a winter coat that was pink, puffy and long. Several of my friends had coats like that, and I wanted one too. My family wasn’t very well off, so I rarely got that much choice in my winter coat selection.

    Lo and behold, that season, I got the coat of my dreams. knee length, dark pink, and puffy. I was in heaven.

    The first day I wore it to school, we went on a field trip to the Elks Lodge up the hill from the school to go bowling. It was november, and bitterly cold. I was all snuggled up in a warm sweater, scarf, and of course, my new coat on the walk to the Lodge. My best friend, though, was wearing a light sweater and no coat. Being a good friend, I handed over my precious coat to her, so we could both be warm.

    About 100 ft after she put the coat on, she slipped and fell, sliding 10 feet down a wet muddy hill. The back of my coat was covered in mud.

    The stains stuck, and I wore that coat all winter, though it looked like someone had had diarrhea all over it.

    posted by jcb on 10-3-2007 at 9:55 am

23. Great stories! I see I have my work cut out for me.

    Once in a while, when I was young, my parents would go on vacation, leaving us kids at home (my sister, presumably, being old enough to take care of us). However, whenever they did, catastrophe ensued. During the perhaps 3 vacations they ever took without us, the following occurred:
    1. Tree struck by lightning, falls across driveway prohibiting use of cars in garage.
    2. Sister accidentally loses contact lens down the drain…so off we go to the optometrist’s office. Legally blind, she sits behind the wheel of the car while I (too young for a license) steer and hope no one notices.
    3. Grandmother dies.
    4. Garage door opener fails.
    5. Parents leave house. I start timing how long it will take for disaster to occur. Within two minutes, a water pipe has burst in our backyard.

    And how’s this for a Charlie Brown wedding:
    I didn’t get to choose a dress (my sister made me buy it from her friend who had broken off an engagement and wanted the dress out of her life); my in-laws dictated the day of the wedding (we wanted Shakespeare’s birthday; they informed us that there were only two weekends in the entire year when the could possibly make time for a wedding…and the church was already booked for the other one); my sister (maid of honor) was jealous that I was marrying before her and refused to give me a shower or help with invitations. My brother dropped out of the wedding party three weeks before the ceremony because his girlfriend didn’t like the idea of him walking down the aisle with another girl; and my parents failed to book a restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. And I paid for the bridesmaids’ dresses. Fewer than 50 people showed up.

    We’re still married anyway. Take that, Lucy!

    posted by Lori L. on 10-3-2007 at 10:37 am

24. I was the drum major for my college band. At the high school marching competition, we played an exhibition as the judges were calculating scores, so every band student and teacher and parent in the state was there in the stadium. The last song we played started with the band facing backward, and I was conducting on the back side of the field. Then, I was to run across the field during a big crescendo and start conducting on the front side with a big, company front push to the press box.

    Well, I slipped - wet grass, flat-soled shoes - and crashed into my podium. White uniform became mud brown. I clutched to the top of the podium, conducted the last measures, and then collapsed at the base of the podium. My old high school band, my parents, my family, my girlfriend and her parents, everyone in my young life, right there in the stands, watching me writhe in the mud, clutching my knee.

    Next day at the Urgent Care center, the nurse asks me, “how did you hurt your knee?” I said, “I slipped on some wet grass.” She responded, “Oh, no, you’re not the U of — Drum Major, are you? That was awful!”

    posted by Ian on 10-3-2007 at 10:48 am

25. After 6 years of dating, my high school sweetheart and I got married. We lived in New Jersey but since my mother, my brother, and his brother all lived in North Carolina (and because it’s a heck of a lot cheaper) we had always tossed around the idea of moving down there some day. A few months after our wedding, I got a phone call from my 49-year old mother letting me know that the pulled muscle that she thought she had was actually a tumor. She had liver cancer and was going to start chemotherapy. My aforementioned brother, while a genuinely sweet person, was only 24 and was NOT an amazingly responsible person. I discussed it with my husband and we decided we’d take this as the catalyst to finally make the move. I quit my job and moved down to NC to start taking care of my mother while my husband stayed in New Jersey to work and look for a new job. I was down there for a few months and my husband and I made trips back and forth when we could – we celebrated our first anniversary in a hotel. The lease on our apartment ended and since we didn’t want to renew it, he moved in with his mother. We looked at apartments in NC but my husband seemed to be dragging his feet on finding a new job. My mother’s condition was growing steadily worse, so we made a trip up to Sloan Kettering in NYC to see if we could get her into a new experimental therapy that had been having some good successes. Cue *the bad day.* I had been feeling a little off and had a strange thought in my head. On this day, my mother, her sister and I went to Sloan Kettering and found out that they couldn’t accept her into the program because her cancer had metastasized, and they didn’t have a very good prognosis for her. With amazingly heavy hearts we drove back to New Jersey. Later in the day, my husband told me that we needed to talk. Before our meeting, I acted on my strange thought and took a pregnancy test, which was positive. When he and I got together, I didn’t tell him about my pregnancy at first because his request had sounded so ominous. He told me that he had met someone and that he wanted a divorce. I told him about the pregnancy and said that I thought we should try counseling first, but he refused. So in one day, I found out that I was going to be pregnant, motherless, divorced, homeless, and jobless. We wound up moving my mother (and me) into her mother’s house in New Jersey, where I and my ever-growing belly slept on a tiny air mattress on the floor next to her bed. She died two months before the baby was born. On the upside, I am now the proud single mother of a gorgeous 2-year old son and I’m amazingly happy about NOT being with my ex. But at the time, it was definitely a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

    posted by cb on 10-3-2007 at 10:49 am

26. I wish this weren’t a true story… but Charlie Brown-esque things happen to me all the time…

    I went to Germany a few years ago, my parents are stationed there (army) and my brother was graduating high school.

    Nothing, in my years of traveling, prepared me for this trip.

    Wednesday, June 8th.

    I arrive at the airport early which I something I have never done before. I meander and contemplate my impending trip and my currently bandaged foot (I tripped over a rock and cut it to shreds just before my flight.)

    I talk on the phone for a while, read a magazine, and drink the largest smoothie on earth before finally realizing that my flight to Chicago has been delayed.

    Not happy with this, I speak with the guy at the counter as I have a connecting flight to Frankfurt that I am going to miss. He assures me that all flights to and from O’Hare are delayed and I should make it.

    Should make it. That’s reassuring.

    I am concerned that I am going to miss the flight to Frankfurt and consequently miss graduation but I try not to stress as we board the plane.

    After another delay in Richmond we finally make it to Chicago but they don’t let us off the plane immediately which means I have now developed a facial tic.

    I hop off the plane to try and catch my flight… which I later find out left 20 minutes after we landed but since we didn’t get off the plane right away – I ended up missing it by minutes.

    I am employing the deep breathing technique that I learned in yoga. It does not work.

    I spend the next hour and a half on my cell phone trying to get a plane to Germany. They ask me if I would mind waiting until Saturday. Did I mention its Wednesday afternoon?

    After another hour, I finally get a flight to London that leaves Thursday and then will have to catch another plane from London to Frankfurt.

    Fine. This leaves me with roughly 24 hours to kill. I call the family members in Chicago and naturally as I am leaving messages to come get me… my phone dies.

    Alright, I like an adventure. I ask to go get my suitcase so I can get my charger out and be rescued from this nightmare. They tell me I can go, but that since my flight is so far out, they wont let me back in and I will have to risk spending the night on the streets of Chicago because there are no available hotels in the area because of a onvention.

    I decided to tough it out behind the secure area.

    After aimlessly wandering (more like hobbling because of my foot) for several hours I finally make my way over to the cots that have been set up for us. I and 50 of my new best friends settle in for the night at about 2 am when suddenly, construction begins. Right next to us. I am now laughing hysterically on my cot and getting some dirty looks from my new best friends.

    Thursday June, 9th.

    Security wakes us up at 4 am. I am too tired to find this as amusing as I found the construction to be.

    . I now look like the living dead. After several failed attempts to sleep sitting up I decided to freshen (I use the term loosely) up in the bathroom and attempt to take a shower in the sink. I wash my undies and dry them with the hand dryer which receives some odd looks from the ladies in the restroom who have not spent the night in the airport.

    After several trips to Starbucks and several naps in odd places (the longest being half way in a phone booth) I finally board the plane to London and make it without incident.

    Friday, June 10th.

    I hobble (as my injured foot is now twice as big as it should be) around Heathrow before boarding another plane and flying to Frankfurt. After a brief hello to customs and immigration (Something to declare? Yes. I hate everyone right now.) I make my way to get my luggage.

    Hello? What’s this? I have no luggage?

    I stand at the British Airways counter not sure if I should cry, flip out, or laugh – so I do all three.

    “Do… you know…. what the last… three days have BEEN LIKE FOR ME?” I choke out.

    They hand me a British Airways t-shirt and some toothpaste, promising to deliver my suitcase when they find it.

    I walk out and see my daddy. “Hey baby,” he gives me a big hug. “Where’s your luggage?” My eyes well with tears as I whimpered “lost”.

    I returned to near normal after a shower and I did end up getting my luggage the next day. I had a wonderful time with my family and had to leave far too early. As I kissed my family good-bye, I though to myself… no way could my flight back to the USA be as bad as the one there.

    Boy was I wrong.

    One week later.

    I board the plane and find my seat. So far, so good. I am sitting in the middle section of three seats, in an aisle seat. There is an empty seat next to me and some guy in the other aisle set. He smiles at me. I smile back.

    A large scary old guy who’s breathing heavy comes lumbering down the aisle and I am cursing my luck – sure he is going to sit next to me.

    Nope. He keeps on. I am pleased at this point. God must be trying to make up for the hellish time I had getting to Germany.

    9 hours till we get to Chicago.

    The flight attendant smiles at me. “Gosh, how’d you get so lucky to have an empty seat next to you? The plane is completely full.”

    “Just lucky I guess” I reply, very pleased.

    The guy in the other aisle seat leans over and pats the seat in between us. “Must be an angel sitting here”. “Right, angel.” I smile politely and notice that he is staring just a little too long at me.

    8 hours and 40 min till Chicago.

    After noticing buddy in the other seat continually shooting me longing looks, I decide to immerse myself in a magazine. He keeps looking at me. A lot. I am less pleased and a little uncomfortable.

    6 hours till Chicago.

    I wake up from a nap to change the batteries in my mp3 player. I am groggy and my eyes aren’t yet fully open. But I do see a Lancôme gift set (brought from duty free cart on the plane) and a card being shoved at me. The guy in the other seat says “This is for you. Read the card when you get a chance.”

    I just woke up. There is still 6 hours left in the flight and no empty seats on the plane. I can’t deal with this. I stammer unintelligibly and set the gift down. “I have to sleep.” I finally say pulling down my eye pillows and turning on the music. I am hideously uncomfortable. I sit, unable to fall asleep for fear he might stroke my hair, and I pout.

    1 hour 30 minutes till we freaking land.

    Gift giver decides to make small talk. He tells me about himself (army, injured, rehab in Texas, divorced, SON graduated high school) and asks me about myself.

    I am extremely vague (writer, somewhere in Virginia, BROTHER graduated high school) and notice that the giver is taking notes about what I am saying on the back of a receipt. I flight the urge to open the emergency exit and jump.

    1 hour till ground (the longest hour of my life)

    Giver gets to the moment I’ve been dreading.

    “You never read your card.”

    I titter weakly “Oh. I guess I didn’t.”

    Apprehensively I pick up the card. In all capital letters it begins…

    “PLEASE DO NOT BE AFRAID. OR ANGRY.”

    Oh sweet sassy molassy. It’s worse than I thought. Errant periods placed in the middle of sentences, fragmented thoughts, bad spelling, sappy sentiments, the whole nine.

    I struggle to keep my face neutral.

    The card continues “I HOPE YOU DO NOT HAVE A HUSBAND. OR BOYFRIEND. I WOULD. LIKE. A FRIEND. I THINK YOU ARE VERY BEAUTIFUL. AND GORGEOUS. I AM A CHRISTIAN AND APPRECIATE THAT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR KINDNESS.”

    I struggle not to scream.“Uh. Thanks but I really can’t accept this.” I start to tell him.

    “I really, really want you to have it” he says leaning toward me. “So,” he says casually. “You can come visit me in Texas when I get settled in.”

    Whoa. When exactly during this hell flight did we start a relationship?

    “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I really can’t accept this gift.” I try to shove it back at him. No lip gloss is worth this.

    “I’ll get you a hotel room so you won’t feel uncomfortable or anything.”

    Good luck with that one buddy. I’ve been uncomfortable for nine hours now.

    “I’ll. Uh. Think about it.”

    We land and I turn on my phone and thank you Jesus… it rings. “Nice to meet you.” I whisper to the giver and make a mad dash off the plane.

    I hide out in the ladies room in the terminal for fifteen minutes because I am scared I will run into him at customs and immigration.
    I saunter out after reassuring myself the coast is clear. I hit immigration and head to find my luggage.

    “Stefanie!”

    There he is waving. I smile, yell “luggage”, grab my bag and disappear into the crowd, scamming my way to the front of the customs line.

    And yes. I did end up taking the gift set. I not only deserved it, I earned it.

    posted by Stef on 10-3-2007 at 11:47 am

27. I have terrible luck…and balance.

    Here is my worst day…ever.

    In college, I worked at a local shop. One Wednesday, I woke up late and ended up opening the store about an hour late. Luckily, I had to leave for class just as my boss was getting there, so I managed to escape getting yelled at. I made it to my Statistics class early–which gave me just enough time to fall asleep and I failed to wake up before the class was over.

    In my next class, Biology, I had a presentation to make. I discovered, however, just before I was set to deliver my presentation, that I had spent the previous two months working on the wrong project. I had to deliver the wrong presentation anyway, despite it automatically receiving a failing grade.

    After the presentation, I went to the bathroom because I felt like an idiot and because someone near my in class smelled SO bad. After leaving the classroom, I discovered that the smell had followed me–once in the bathroom, I determined the smell to be cat pee. After a very rushed investigation of all my clothing to see where the smell was coming from… I had realized that my roomate’s cat had climbed into my underwear drawer and peed on my underwear. Disgusted, and sick to my stomach, I took them off and threw them away and prayed for the last 15 minutes of class to fly by so I could make my way home to a hot shower or 15.

    Once class FINALLY ended, I made my way to the parking lot to get in my car and I managed to fall OFF the sidewalk, which left me not only smelling like a litter box, but completely scraped on both arms and on my knees. Not to mention, that the cell-phone I had purchased that afternoon between work and school was shattered across the road.

    posted by Kristi on 10-3-2007 at 12:08 pm

28. Did not happen to me, but to a close friend: She is starting her first job in a new career. Monday is spent doing all the new employee processing. Tuesday — the day she actually reports to work as the assistant to the head of Public Relations at a major US airline — is 11 Sep 2001.

    posted by afj on 10-3-2007 at 12:36 pm

29. A Charlie Brown sporting moment…

    In Babe Ruth baseball I played first base. One particular game the other team was batting with a runner already on third base. The batter hits a slow ground ball to me and as I go for it I see the runner from third heading home, and I’m thinking to myself “double play”.

    So I run and scoop up the ground ball coming towards me, step on first base and then reach into my glove to throw home - only the ball isn’t there! I was so worried about getting the runner going home that I scooped up a gloveful of dirt instead of the ball! Everyone is safe, the other team is laughing at me, everyone on my team is ready to kill me, and I’m out there with no place to hide. Good grief!

    posted by MC on 10-3-2007 at 1:08 pm

30. When I was in high school I had a huge crush on this guy, Brad, who was of course totally cute, a football player AND sat behind me during band. *sigh*

    Well, I would find every reason to gaze at him secretly before 1st period everyday from my locker. My friends always stood around and talked before class and I could hide within the circle and be generally inconspicuous. One particular day I was leaning back on my locker holding my books across my chest for my first and second period classes and zoning out staring at Brad. And for the first time he actually looks over while I’m full out staring at him and I freak out!

    I made every attempt to just stand up straight and start talking to my friends like nothing happened but I didn’t get my balance back from leaning so far back on my locker. As I tried to get my footing back I end up falling backwards, my books go flying into the air and I crash to the floor on my rear, utterly mortified, much like every football kicking attempt of Charlie Brown. So now I’ve not only let Brad know I’ve been staring at him like a love sick puppy, I’ve got a huge hallway of cruel high schoolers staring and laughing. I quickly gathered up my books and practically sprinted down the hall leaving my friends to wonder what had happened.

    posted by Elaine on 10-3-2007 at 1:49 pm

31. I was in my sophomore year of high school, and i dropped my house keys in the floor of the gym locker room. You see, we were required to change whenever we had gym, and there was a hole in the corner of the floor, next to my locker. So, as I folded up my pants, the keys fell out of my pocket and into the hole. I went to the gym teacher (with shorts on!) and asked him if there was anything he could to. He said he didn’t know what hole I was talking about and told me to see the custodian, who was a rather large African-American fellow with James Earl Jones’ vocal chords. I asked him if he could get my keys out of the hole in the floor. He immediately turned, faced me, started laughing like a madman, and howled “YOU’RE SCREWED, SON!!! You’re SCREWED!!!!!!!!”

    I had to wait outside for four hours for my mother to get home.

    posted by Steve on 10-3-2007 at 2:18 pm

32. The timing of this contest is absolutely perfect, as I had the worst day ever yesterday. A little backstory: I’m about a month and a half into my freshman year at a large state university, and it’s really not going as well as I had hoped it would. I didn’t even want to go away to college, but rather to live at home and commute to someplace nearby. Unfortunately, my parents must be trying to get rid of me, so here I am 3 hours away from them at a college I never wanted to attend in the first place. The only reason I’m here is because I was a National Merit Scholar and therefore they’re throwing wads of cash at me to attend school.

    I’m getting great grades because I have to in order to keep my infernal scholarship, but that leaves me little time to make friends. (I’m taking organic chemistry! *pulls out hair and screams*) So, imagine my surprise when yesterday morning, the one and only person here who I would consider a good friend prospect said to me, “Sandy, why were you laughing at me yesterday?” I replied (truthfully), “I…I was laughing at you? I didn’t laugh at you.” He said, “Yes, you did, I saw you and said hi yesterday and you just laughed at me.” It was then I remembered that, just as I was walking in front of the dorm where he lives, I was recounting a humorous incident from my revelry-filled high school days and laughing to myself. He did not believe me when I told him this. There goes my only friend.

    But wait…there’s more. I had my organic chemistry lab yesterday afternoon. Let me tell you, I am experimentally challenged. I always manage to screw up whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing. Yesterday, I dropped my flask that was filled with my carefully extracted products (that I needed to complete my lab report!) all over the floor. The glass shattered into a million pieces. My precious crystals of benzoic acid stood out against the grimy gray tiles of the floor as if to say, “Sorry, babe, we just had to leap out of your hand and ruin your day even more.” My (heartless) TA informed me that I couldn’t redo the lab, and therefore I will receive a failing grade next week when the report is due. I didn’t even argue with her. I just cleaned up my lab bench, paid the $10 I owed for the broken glassware, and left. Wonderful…now I’m a Hamilton poorer than I should be.

    I decided that maybe working out would get my mind off of the awful day I was having. As soon as I walked into the rec center - BAM - a volleyball smacked me in the face. HARD. One of the volleyball players (who was pretty cute, I must say) ran over to make sure I was okay. “Don’t worry about it, it’s only my face,” I joked. Dang, he was cute. Maybe the day was getting better. Anyway, I made my way over to a treadmill to mindlessly run for a while. After about 2 minutes, I felt some mysterious liquid running down my face. “It’s just sweat, I guess, I’ll wipe it on my t-shirt,” I thought. WRONG. It was blood, my first bloody nose in about ten years, no doubt a result of getting smacked in the face with a projectile. Thanks a lot, cute volleyball stupidheads. At that point, I left the gym, walked back to my dorm room, shut myself inside, and made a solemn vow not to leave again for the rest of the day.

    Thankfully, today’s been better. I found out that I made the high grade, a 98, on my first calculus test. Maybe my parents will be amazed by my awesomeness and let me transfer for next semester. Or maybe they won’t. Yeah, they won’t.

    In conclusion, I had a really, really, really, awful, terrible, no good, rotten day. Please give me a free t-shirt, and I will love you and your glorious blog and magazine forever. Oh, wait, I already do.

    Sandy

    posted by Sandy on 10-3-2007 at 2:31 pm

33. Having had really AWFUL abdominal cramps for about two months, I go to my family doctor, who informs me that I have fibroids and can’t get pregnant. So, I schedule an appointment with a specialist in the city to see what can be done. Meanwhile, and this is REALLY BAD, I haven’t slept with my husband in a year. The only other man I have ever slept with is the man I am at that time having an affair with. No worries - I can’t get pregnant. Let the games begin. A month later the specialist calls me in early because of a cancellation and they run a whole battery of tests on my hormones, etc. The next day, I stayed home from work because I was really tired and didn’t feel well. My secretary called me at home and said to call the doctor’s office, it was urgent. I call and they inform me I’m pregnant. “Isn’t it a miracle,” they ask, which it was. I love my daughter more than life itself. Anyway, back to the husband dilemma. I sit in the recliner ALL DAY, nauseous and exhausted, waiting for him to get home from work so that I can tell him I’m pregnant. He told me he wished I’d told him it was his. BAD DAY. Miracle result, as I have the most precious child in the world.

    P.S. Her room is done in Baby Snoopy - she lives for her Peanuts videos.

    posted by Baby Mama on 10-3-2007 at 3:15 pm

34. Okay, so a lot of people have posted some really tragic experiences here. However, I assure you that, while I didn’t nearly lose life or limb in this incident, at the time, I think I would gladly have died on the spot.

    I was in 8th grade, and I going to be performing my first vocal solo ever, in front of a house packed with my classmates and their families. Since I was one of the tallest girls in the chorus, I was standing on the very top riser, and had to circle around and come down a flight of stairs to floor level, where the microphone was. Of course, one stair into the descent, I turned my ankle and fell head first all the way down the stairs. I can still remember the thunking of my body crashing down the stairs. Ew.

    I tried to recover as gracefully as possible, but let’s face it, I wasn’t all that graceful, so I started crying instead, cause I’ve always had trouble holding back the tears. Now I had just falled down the stairs AND was crying. So I tried to cover up the crying by “laughing it off,” which turned even more horrific, as I cried and laughed and blew snot out my nose as an auditorium full of classmates looked on. not to mention I had popped two buttons off the dress I was wearing when I fell, so there was the whole dress-hanging-open thing too, which I didn’t really notice until after the whole ordeal was over.

    Needless to say, I sang the damn solo, though probably not very well, seeing as I was traumatized for life and could never face going back to school again.
    Until the next day when my parents made me go back to school.

    posted by Phraz on 10-3-2007 at 3:37 pm

35. Well, it was my 10th grade year in high school. It was later on the in the (school) year, towards spring. Being hot outside, my family left our living room window open. My backpack was underneath it. During the night, a skunk sprayed some of its “perfume” on our porch. So, as I entered school, I walked past some kid who said “Wow, I smell a dead skunk!” Thankfully, they didn’t look at me. In my english class, I sat in the back of the room and was chatting with my best friend about the situation. What I didn’t know is that my teacher was listening it. So, when the bell rang, the next class came in. The girl who sat in my seat complained about the smell, so my english teacher decided to explain loud enough for the whole class to hear. So, next time, I’ll just skip school.

    posted by Reggie on 10-3-2007 at 5:05 pm

36. My high school was built in the stone ages. Well, actually it was built in the ’50s. And the ’60s. And 70’s and 80’s. Each decade adding a building. Up until 2005 there were five completely separate buildings.

    My freshman year, they had just completed the brand-new ‘600 building’. It was 4 stories high. I got my schedule the day before school started, and of COURSE my schedule falls under the category of the ‘freshman death schedule’ going from one end of the campus to the other end of the campus and back again. Several times. My day totaling of approx. 15 flights of stairs. The worst was the trek from 4th floor biology to the other end of the school (the ‘basement’) for math.

    I would have to fight my way against the current down the four flights of stairs, then power-walk down the bus lane, and then push my way down another flight of stairs. All in under 7 minutes.

    I vividly remember one day when it had been pouring rain all morning. On my way down the four flights of stairs I managed to miss a step and fall at the 3rd floor. And the 2nd floor. And on the main floor. Once outside, on the newly paved and very slippery walkway I slipped and completely wiped out. After gathering my things and hoping to god that nobody saw my face I managed to make it into the other building without falling again. It wasn’t until I reached the doorway of my math class that I trip over my own feet and fall into the classroom, and just my luck I was one of the last ones to arrive, and the entire class stood there, laughing at me.

    I must say, that is my best (or worst..) charlie brown story.

    posted by Rachel on 10-3-2007 at 6:40 pm

37. I can’t think of any really bad days I’ve had, but I do have a teribble story from my sixth grade teacher. (Although it’s nowhere near as bad as some of the ones already posted.)

    So when my teacher started sixth grade, she was really really nervous. She kept imagining all these horrible things that she was sure were going to happen to her. Despite this, she got through the first day alright. On the second day of school, she was still a little worried, but she got through that day just fine as well.

    On the third day, she goes to school feeling good. She can handle this, it’s not that hard. She’s wearing a brand-new pink skirt, everything is perfect. She’s standing at her locker between classes, when some random kid runs past and yanks her skirt down, leaving her standing in the hallway with her arms full of books and her skirt around her ankles.

    Maybe the third time’s not the charm, after all.

    posted by Pointy-Hatted Geek on 10-3-2007 at 6:48 pm

38. i’m sure after all those posts mine isn’t going to seem as wonderful, BUT…

    i went to college to become a landscaper.
    while in college, i found out i was bipolar and started medicine for it. when i got out, i relised that no one wants to hire a female landscaper for grunt work (and i really don’t want to do that much grunt work), and the market is already too saturated for me to just start a new business.
    so, i freelance sometimes.
    but apparently the medicine i take to control my bipolar also makes me extremely allergic to sunlight. i thought it just made me have headaches if i was out in it without a hat for more than 15 minutes or so, but after spending roughly two years with almost no sunlight after spending one in an indoor job from sunup to sundown and then spending a summer and winter convelecing after surgery, i was quite pale when i took another freelance job.

    apparently i am allergic enough to the sun at this point that not only do i get sunburns that turn purple and swell profusely, it also makes me violently ill.
    so i guess none of that for me.

    but i wanted to go back to college anyway, so now i’m just going to go get my bachelors in genetics and i can have a permanant indoor job. yay!

    posted by Sue on 10-3-2007 at 9:21 pm

39. The night before I graduated college, I was at a friend’s house hanging out, listening to an aging free-verse poet ramble improv poetry. On my walk home (about 1 block), I was walk-by punched by a stranger. I was walking on the sidewalk in front of my house, and someone ran up and punched me in the face. I woke up the next morning with a black eye and only a slight recollection of what had happened. I considered that my initiation from college into the “real world”; a literal smack in the face…

    I guess that’s what happens when the real world hits you…

    posted by Merv on 10-3-2007 at 10:49 pm

40. When I was in grade school, I wrote a love note to a boy I liked. My mom relly liked country music and I’d heard the old song “Check Yes or No” by…I forget, and wrote the note just like the one in the song. Thinking I was being romantic (or at least cute), I gave it to him and waited.

    He never gave it back.

    Jerk.

    posted by heather on 10-4-2007 at 12:38 am

41. For many years I wished that I could meet and have a private talk with Charles Schulz, just person to person.

    I don’t even want to begin going into my life story of being a real life Charlie Brown.

    posted by Tdave on 10-4-2007 at 1:01 am

42. I was 16 (long time ago)and standing next to my friends Monte Carlo (car for you youngsters)talking to a hot girl and looking really cool. Next thing I know a bird did his business on my head. We laughed about it and unlike Chuck we married.

    posted by Angel on 10-4-2007 at 6:03 am

43. RE the e-mail newsletter story from Birmingham, AL:I know just where you were. That is one of the worst parts of B’ham. Tell me you didn’t stay in the one hotel that is closest to the airport. Mistake, Dude. In B’ham, you NEVER stay close to the airport. No wonder you had a flat tire; it was probably slashed by a wandering gang of five-year-olds around 3 AM. Always drive to the Hoover area or Hwy 280/459 interchange to spend the night. I’m surprised you weren’t kicked out of your room so they could use it for hourly rates. You were really fortunate it was only your tires that were slashed.

    posted by Lin H. on 10-4-2007 at 6:27 am

44. My husband is military and his current job takes him away a lot! However, he is not gone enough - we have four beautiful children, five years of age and younger. However chaotic things might get, we all love a good laugh. My Charlie Brown-est day will always be a great family story, but the day it happened I was NOT laughing.

    I was eight months pregnant with our youngest child. I was huge and round and uncomfortable. I had one pair of jeans that still fit. It was winter and on the ground there were several inches of snow, topped by rock hard inches of ice, with more snow on top. I was getting the three children ready to take the oldest two (five and three) to preschool.

    It was a very important day at preschool as there were singing performances going on, so we HAD to go. We slipped and slid out to the car, but the automatic door opener wouldn’t open. Immeditately I knew the battery had to be dead. I manually opened the doors and got everyone loaded in and buckled. I got in the driver’s seat and tried to start the car.
    No dice.
    I decided I would put it in neutral, let it roll down the driveway where my husbands car was parked on the street. Then the two cars would be perpendicular to one another and I’d be able to jump my car.

    I couldn’t even get my car into neutral. I don’t know if it was the angle of the driveway, the ice, or my lunacy, but it wouldn’t move.

    So I hit upon the idea of pulling my husbands car next to mine. Our driveway is really a one car driveway, but if the first car is pulled all the way to the right, another car can fit in on the left. Only problem was that I hadn’t anticipated needing to pull the other car in next to mine, so I was parked mostly in the middle of the driveway.

    I decided to attempt to pull my husbands car next to mine. I get it going and pull in, trying to get it close enough to the front of my car without hitting my car or knocking down the light in our front yard. I spin the tires through the ice and snow, diggiing up grass. All of a sudden I realize that I’ve dented the side of my car with the side mirror of my husbands car!

    Getting out of my husbands car, i check out my car and realize that I’ve gotten the car pulled up far enough. I get out the jumper cables and realize that I’ve never jumped a car by myself before! So I decide to call my lifeline, my all knowing father. However, he lives on the other side of the continent from me. So it’s eight-thirty where I am and five-thirty in THE MORNING where he is.

    He answers the phone groggily and I explain my problem. He talks me through putting the cables on, which I do. I take my keys and start my husbands car, then I get ready to clip on the cable. I set the phone (with my dad still on the line) on the corner of the windshield of my car and prepare myself to clip the cable on to my husbands running car.

    I am scared. I am petrified. I know this can be dangerous. My children are buckled in their car seats, watching my every move. What if I kill myself? I picture thousands of volts (okay, I have an overactive imagination) running through my body, throwing me feet away, killing myself and my unborn child, all while my three kids watch from the car. I am shaking. I cannot bring myself to clip on the cable.

    Finally, I just take a breath and do it. My car springs to life and because I manually opened the doors, the alarm begins going off, in my father’s ear because the phone is still connected to him and is laying on the windshield, right next to the alarm. I grab the phone and promptly drop it on the ground. Thunk. I fumblingly pick it up and try to move quickly to my husbands car to retrieve the key fob that will turn off the car. While trying to manuver my whale-like pregnant mass around on the inches of ice, I fall down. I struggle back up, make it to my husbands car, hit the proper buttons, turn off the car alarm, and burst into tears.

    After calming down, I got everything back in it’s place and got us all to school. Unfortunately, my Charlie Brown saga didn’t end there. I replaced the battery in the car myself, but tipped the old battery and got battery acid on lots of things - my one pair of maternity jeans that fit, two baby carriers, my husband’s shirt, a dining room chair and various other things. We all lived and I’ve learned lots of things, but…

    Good Grief, Charlie Brown.

    posted by MommyOj on 10-4-2007 at 6:41 am

45. Many years ago, I had a very Charlie Brown-ish day for a small-town-girl-going-to-the-big-city:

    I’d never been to New York, and my company awarded me a trip to their headquarters there (fun was promised, too), along with a limo to meet me. I boarded my flight and narrowly avoided sitting on a big wad of gum- my first hint that this might not be a good trip. After ten minutes, the passengers were informed that there was a “minor mechanical problem” (how’s that for a dose of anxiety?), and we’d soon be on our way. This cheerful news was followed by several more announcements about our eventual departure. Forty-five minutes later, we were asked to de-plane. Apparently, the problem had turned “major”.

    I raced to the ticket counter, because I HAD to be at JFK by 8:30 p.m. to meet my limo. There was, at that time, no way to communicate with anyone at the other end of my flight. The agent regretfully informed me that no New York flights were departing this airport for at least three hours, but- as a last ditch effort- the airline could load me into a cab to Orlando (1-1/2 hours away) to catch one that would get me there in time. All I had to do was retrieve my lugguage, which would be delivered presently. My window to leave this airport for Orlando and make that flight was an uncomfortable ten minutes.

    Twenty minutes later, soaked with perspiration and shaking like a leaf, I loaded my luggage into the most decrepit cab in the state of Florida. My driver was a forty-ish woman who looked like she might have been recently released after serving a sentence for murder. Maybe it was the prison tats.
    I meekly informed her that I needed to be in Orlando in an hour. She grunted a reply.
    A few minutes later, her cell phone rang, and she began to scream into it that she was “sick of this f*&#^&@ job” and was quitting (I only hoped she’d get me to Orlando first, and not kill me). Ten more minutes of non-stop screaming, and she finally hung up. The rest of our ride was uneventful, except for the daring dashes through interstate traffic. Miraculously, we got there with a minute to spare.

    I ran to my flight, and the captain announced almost immediately that Orlando was not launching any planes for at least thirty minutes, due to thunderstorms in the area.
    I needed a drink.
    We finally took off an hour or so later. There was no way I’d arrive to meet the limo, but surely they’d know about my flight delay and wait for me.

    We landed around 9:50, and I rushed off the plane. I was all alone in NYC, carefully guarding my purse, trying to look confident…and there was no limo in sight for me. I found a pay phone and dialed the number the office had given me in case of problems. The man who answered me said, “Screw you, lady, you weren’t there on time. Take a cab”.
    Welcome to New York.
    After a bit of searching, I found the cab line. There was a van heading to Long Island, where my hotel supposedly was. I was told there’d be room for me, so I jumped in. The driver stared at me for a minute or two, then informed me that I looked just like someone he knew who’d recently died. I’m pretty sure I told him I was on the verge, myself.

    The van made three stops; at the last, a man boarded and squeezed in next to me as closely as possible without actually mating. Apparently, he was very tired, because within a minute or two, he was heavily asleep on my shoulder. I think he drooled a little on my new jacket.
    At long last, we made it to Long Island, and the drooler awoke and jumped out at my hotel. I was grateful he was on a different floor.

    I haven’t been to New York since.

    posted by Beth on 10-4-2007 at 7:39 am

46. Job interview, 2001.

    Nearing the end of my graduate career, I applied for a job in a neighboring state. I got a call and they invited me for an interview! Yes!

    One of my advisors was friends with one of the members of the search committee. The advisor told me that the search committee had selected three candidates to interview, and that I was NOT one of them. However, he explained, when his friend, who was on vacation when the initial three candiates were selected, saw my CV he raised a holy fuss to get me interviewed. So the committee didn’t invite someone they wanted to in order to invite me. So the committee was already four to one against even having me interview. Lovely.

    So I drove, on Easter Sunday, on which I had had other plans, to the interview. I opened my suitcase, and my suit was wrinkled all to you know what! In tears, I called my mom asking how you iron a suit, being 10 pm and no dry cleaners would be open on Easter Sunday to press it by morning. She calmly told me to lay a towel over the wrinkles and iron quickly with high steam. It worked! Thanks Ma!

    I set the alarm clock to wake up good and early so I could take my time getting a shower and getting ready for the full day interview. Now, on 99% of ALL digital clocks I have ever seen, the red dot means PM. It has been that way my whole life, there was absolutely no reason to change that now. None. Zippo. I kept waking up and saying to myself “the clock will wake you up. No need to worry about it. Relax. Sleep some more. The clock will wake you up.” Well, you guessed it. On this clock the red dot meant AM, and I had set the alarm to go off 12 hours later than I wanted. I finally looked at the clock and it was 10 minutes before my ride was to pick me up.

    I jumped in the shower, and apparently nobody had been in it for a long time, because the water was stagnant and rank when it came out. I showered as best I could, but all day I would occasionally get slimy wiffs of myself.

    The interview went okay, although as the day went on, it became more and more obvious that I was not the person they wanted, and that I was only marginally qualified for the job.

    At the end of the interview, the department head was going to drive me back to the hotel. As we were walking to his car, he said “My regular car is in the shop, so we’re going to have to drive my old grad school car.” We walked towards an aqua blue colored Volvo, which reminded me of a Reader’s Digest joke.

    “Oh,” I said, “is that your aqua Volvo?”

    “Yes it is,” he said.

    “You know, there’s something about an aqua Volvo man.”

    He didn’t laugh. He didn’t get it. He apparently didn’t remember the commercials. But after the previous 24 hours, making an inadvertent homosexual pass at the department head probably didn’t hurt me much.

    posted by Chris on 10-4-2007 at 7:39 am

47. “I just love watching the sparrows flying over the meadow in the evening light,” my mother said, without a hint of sarcasm.

    “They’re feeding on the fireflies,” my sister matter-of-factly replied, using that tone of voice that broached no argument that she knew every last thing about the animal kingdom.

    “Hey, why aren’t you out there trying to save those poor little fireflies,” I shot back at her, hoping she’d rise to the bait.

    I could feel her glaring at me, but I refused to look up from the article on some rock star overdosing on sleeping pills I had been reading.

    “Stop being such a jackass. Just because I’m a vegetarian, doesn’t mean I can’t morally rationalize the physical needs of other organisms.”

    “But if you could, you’d have them eating a soy gluten firefly alternative right?”

    “F* you.”

    “Look at their grace,” my mother marveled.

    This exchange was typical of the family vacations I took in my mid-twenties. Every June my mother, sister, and I all met up for a week on Cushing Island, a verdant blip in Portland, Maine’s Casco Bay. Dad hadn’t been invited along since the divorce and, to be quite honest, I think he had been relieved to be released from an annual event he had never really cared about. For my sister and me, these getaways were a relaxing break from our vaguely loathsome jobs, our failing relationships and overdue credit card bills. However, our vacation this particular year had been fraught with difficulty. My sister and I were constantly bickering. We couldn’t get through a meal without one of us pointing out some character flaw the other had managed to demonstrate while passing the salad or lighting the candles.

    There was no one reason why we were more combative than usual; maybe it was because I had been unable to replenish my weed supply before coming or because my sister had recently lost her longtime feline companion to an errant neighborhood driver. No matter the impetus for this acrimony, the non-stop arguing disappointed our mom and she tried to alleviate the tension. Her tactics had ranged from proposing we do a puzzle together, to organizing group walks after dinner to cheerily carrying on one-sided conversations.

    It was late one afternoon about four days into our doomed holiday and we were all out on the veranda of the New England house we’d been renting. The sun was just beginning its slow plunge into the ocean and we all had buried ourselves in the kind of flimsy paperbacks of dubious literary distinction that suddenly become necessary reading on vacation. However, this year Danielle Steel, Amy Tan and, in my case, Clive Cussler, weren’t just diversions, they were our bodyguards. Indeed, it was their considerable duty to keep my sister and me from verbally beating the shit out of each other.

    The day had started out poorly when I accidentally put real milk instead of soy into my sister’s morning coffee and things hadn’t improved in the following hours when I discovered my sister using my razor to shave her legs and God knows what else. However, our time reading together had always represented an unspoken cease-fire. I had even convinced my mother and sister to have the radio on in the background. It had started off well. A block of Beatles songs had been greeted by a few mmm-hmmms of appreciation from all three bookworms, but our momentary truce was torn asunder when the Doors’ “Light My Fire” chortled out of the speakers.

    As I began humming the melody under my breath, the artificial solace we had conceived out of pop tunes and cheap novels was shattered when my mother announced, “I lost my virginity to this song.” She said it so matter-of-factly, she could have been commenting on that day’s weather.

    I don’t think my mother had ever talked to us about her sex life — it had taken her years to own up to her college drug experimentation – so this random declaration was by far the most information she had ever offered up on the subject, not that we had ever asked. Instantly I wished that she had stuck to prosaic one-liners about the cold front that seemed to be developing. She continued talking, expanding on her fond reminiscence, but I had already clamped my hands to my ears and shut my eyes, like a little kid during the scary parts of a slasher film. But even in that dark silence, I could still hear my mother’s voice echoing those seven words like a sordid mantra.

    After a moment, I deemed it okay to open my eyes again and uncover my ears. The first thing I saw was my sister pulling the stereo cord from the wall with a feral intensity; she would have probably heaved the offending set off the porch if the pre-Depression Era monster had been less cumbersome. Both she and I refused to make eye contact with our mother, who had returned to her gold covered romance novel blithely pronouncing “Well, I guess you weren’t mature enough for that.”

    “I’ll never be mature enough to hear that,” I sputtered. My sister joined in with the tone of a reprimanding matron, “And I hope we don’t hear anything else like that ever again, Mother.” Then, without premeditated choreography, the two of us simultaneously gathered up our books and retired to the ratty living room couch inside, demonstrating the kind of solidarity my mother had only dreamed about our entire trip.

    It wasn’t that I had ever been a huge fan of the Doors, but this revelatory proclamation certainly did not endear them to me any further. The few records of theirs I did own were immediately heaved into the garbage when I returned home and my copy of No Way Out made its way to the recycling bin soon after. Still, every so often, one of their songs will crop up, sending me frantically searching for my therapist’s cell phone number. The last time I heard “Love Me Two Times” on a barroom jukebox, my body reacted with a twitchy spasm, spilling my drink on my pants and leaving me freshly embarrassed.

    If there was ever something I didn’t need to know about my mom, “Light My Fire” was it. My children will never be privy to the song that accompanied me my freshman year at college. After all, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t enjoy Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

    posted by Nevin Martell on 10-4-2007 at 7:50 am

48. I once worked as a secretary for a law firm that had its offices in a converted Civil War era house. The basement area in particular was rather creepy, with low ceilings, dampness, and winding hallways, but it was put to use with a kitchen, supply room, work space, and a bathroom.

    The bathroom was the scene of my Charlie Brown-iest day ever. It was located in the basement, right beside the garden door entrance. It was outfitted with a mud sink and not much else, besides the toilet. I often used this bathroom simply because it was close to my desk, but it did have an icky atmosphere. Usually there was a spider in there, and it most often smelled of mildew.

    We kept Lysol disinfectant spray in that bathroom, and it occurred to me one day that it might be a good idea to spray down the toilet seat before I used it.

    After I finished my business, I began to stand up, only to find that my butt was stuck to the toilet seat. I mean, I was halfway up and the seat lifted with me.

    I sat back down and pondered for a second. Apparently, the Lysol had had a chemical reaction with the old toilet seat (I don’t know what it was made of…painted wood or some sort of resin or whatever they used to make toilet seats out of in the old days) and caused the material to become sticky. Very sticky.

    I realized I could call out for help but quickly nixed that idea, as it would be my luck for one of the attorneys to hear tell of my predicament and I’d become the butt of the office jokes.

    So I pulled. And pulled. I ended up peeling my butt and thighs from the toilet seat; it was like pulling off a really big BandAid. I had a red circle that was sore for the rest of the day.

    I never told anyone in that office what had happened to me, and I’ve always wondered if it happened to anyone else.

    That’s pretty Charlie Brown, my friends!

    posted by Natasha on 10-4-2007 at 7:50 am

49. Occasion: High School Graduation

    Award: Best in a Foreign Language

    “Good Grief” Event: I tripped on my (very small) heels walking up the steps to the stage to accept my individual award, fell on my face, and flashed the audience my lovely flowered underwear in the process.

    “Good Grief” Recovery Attempt: I accepted the award, turned around, took off my shoes, bowed, and walked back to my seat. I am proud to say that I am the first (and so far only) person to graduate from my high school in bare feet.

    posted by Sophia on 10-4-2007 at 8:00 am

50. While going through a divorce, I took my 6 year old daughter and myself to Pensacola, FL on the recommendation of friends. We booked a room in a motel highly rated by a source that shall remain anonymous. The cell phones at this time were huge contraptions that fit into a large box. But I felt secure and had a direction.
    The drive was longer than anticipated and the phone did not have coverage to let people know we were delayed. We reached the motel in the late afternoon. The first room they put us in had been a smokers haven and the stench was awful. So after much deliberatrion we were “reassigned”. The next room seemed a bit damp but hey, it is the beach (or within a few miles of one anyway). As I sat down to use the toilet, the ceiling caved in. The sprinklers went off and the staff was called. Since we were hungry they told us all would be fixed if we just go onto dinner, however their dining room was closed. So my daughter and I headed into town and then through town looking for a “recommended” restaurant. We found it, parked the car and saw a crowd standing by a tree. It seems a turtle had been hit by a car and everyone was trying to figure out what to do…the next part is probably a Charlie Brown for the turtle but someone suggested putting him in the water and another person shrieked “it is salt water won’t that hurt his wounds”. Since my daughter was nearly in tears I hurried her into the restaurant. IT took only 1 hour to get a meal because it was crowded with some sports team. The waitress had her Charlie Brown moment when her overloaded tray fell from her arms right behind me. Of course the sympathetic clientele just applauded as if it was the floor show. By then my over tired daughter got on the floor and helped the waitress pick up the mess. The order finally came and it was nothing like what I had requested. But by then who wanted to argue. SO after our meal and a hefty tip urged on by my daughter, we tried to cross towards the beach. It required exact change to use the toll for some reason and I had only 1

    posted by Paula Withrow on 10-4-2007 at 8:00 am

51. Accidental Blasphemy

    My high school choir and I were on our way back from a trip to Chicago to see (or sleep through) the touring musical CATS.

    Our director had arranged for us to sing during the Sunday AM service of a small country Church in Western Michigan. We performed a couple choral numbers, and then my friend Lisa and I sang a special duet. The song was titled: “Jesus Never Fails.”

    Now, what you don’t know at this point in the story is that for some reason, during rehearsals…I had been repeatedly singing the wrong lyrics as I’d been confusing our song with another that contained the phrase, “Jesus always cares.” (Do you see where this is going?)

    Well, during my performance with Lisa and without my conscious volition, I repeatedly sang the phrase: “Jesus never cares!” during each chorus.

    Nice…just nice. I can only imagine that the congregation thought I was rebel punk or a demonically possessed choir boy. Either way, I’d have to say that was the most embarrassing experience of my life.

    Aaron Annapolis

    posted by Aaron Annapolis on 10-4-2007 at 8:01 am

52. My worst day is every day I try to win something. I haven’t done it yet!
    Help!

    posted by Tabi on 10-4-2007 at 8:36 am

53. It all started when I reluctantly agreed to fly to New York to help my pregnant sister move back to Dallas. I should have known her plan to “get paid” to drive a truck back to Dallas with all her belongings was not the best idea. I had taken 4 days off work and arrived on Thursday… Friday morning I awake to her talking with the truck company that she was to drive for. She kept saying is it a pick up truck and they kept saying, “Yes, with a box on back” Perfect she said that way her things would be protected. Little did we know that day when we drove to New Jersey to pick it up that it was a delivery truck with a BIG box on the back and over the cab of the truck… things started getting worse from there.

    Just trying to leave New Jersey we discovered we didn’t have enough cash for the tolls (it was a 4 axle) so we had to borrow money from a stranger at a Wendy’s…

    Flash forward to rush hour traffic, New York City, Brooklyn bridge and me driving. I have never driven in New York and the sign for the Bridge exit says, “All trucks must exit” Jackie screaming at me to take the bridge claims that is for bigger trucks. Just as we get to the very last exit we realize it is because of low clearance and we end up crossing traffic and exiting into chinatown. Atleast, we didn’t get stuck on the bridge (literally) on Friday evening rush hour traffic!!

    Things are picking up, after a few close calls in Chinatown, we are back at her apt. in Brooklyn and packing up to leave.

    We head out of New York around 11pm and come up with the most wonderful idea to stop at Atlantic City and gamble. It’s around 2am and again we discover that the trucks clearance won’t allow us to park in the parking garages at the casinos, instead we park on a nearby side street and pray we aren’t killed.

    A cool $45.00 in winnings and we are headed off again! Sleep soon overcomes us and we decide to exit off the highway (it’s foggy now) and find a hotel.

    Somehow we end up in King of Prussia, PA (where the heck is that???) and find a hotel. After we enter the lobby, two men in leather jackets and no shirts, wearing dog collars and studded bracelets smile and ask us “How many hours do you want the room for?” We trampled over each other trying to get out of there!!! It obviously wasn’t the kind of hotel we were looking for, so in a frenzied effort to get out of there (I was driving again) I took off past their front door and CREAK, SQUEAK

    posted by brenda on 10-4-2007 at 8:40 am

54. In 1990, my husband and my two girls, Rebekah, age ten, and Jamie, age seven, were returning to the UK after spending the summer in the US. We had lived in the UK for the previous two years and were returning there to pick up our vehicle and move to the Netherlands where my husband would teach in a Dept. of Defense Dependents’ School. I had a terrible fear of flying and rarely slept in the few days before we would fly, so I was sleep deprived. My youngest woke up that morning with an ear infection that had her sobbing in pain. Our flight was too early for a trip to a doctor’s office before we left. We got on the plane with me in the grip of abject fear, and my youngest in agony, especially with the change in air pressure.
    We spent approximately 12 hours on flights and layovers before we reached Gatwick airport, where friends were to meet us with our mini-van. Our friend informed us he had put over 4000 miles on our van in six weeks. I had stupidly arranged for us to stay in a hotel in the city of London instead of somewhere close to the airport. It took nearly an hour to reach our hotel. The only parking available was in a lot that charged over $30.00 per night.
    London was in the grip of a heat wave and the temp had topped out at 101 the day we got there. London is not known for its air-conditioned buildings and our hotel did not have a/c and had given out all the small fans it had to other guests, even though it was a very nice hotel and they had the charges to prove it.
    We went into a Burger King in London to eat lunch and my youngest promptly threw up all over the floor. My husband and I made absolutely no move to clean it up. We were wiped out and running on fumes.
    We went down the street to a hospital, waited for three hours to see a doctor and, thankfully, received antibiotics for my daughter’s ear infection. We returned to the hotel and opened all the windows to try and get some kind of relief from the heat. After an hour or so, we decided to walk across the street to a pizza place that advertised air conditioning. We didn’t care about the food, we just wanted the cool air. My husband’s briefcase contained about $3000 in foreign currency and I stuck it under the bed, just on a whim, before we left.
    We ate our pizza (my youngest just laid on the bench seat and didn’t move) and went back to our room. As we walked up to our door, it became obvious that something was not right. The door frame was splintered. In we walked to a room that had been ransacked. My purse was dumped on the bed, suitcases were all opened and the wardrobe was opened. Fortunately, they didn’t look under the bed; the briefcase was untouched. But this day lives in our family history as the day when we were terrified that bad things were going to go on and on. As I read it now, it doesn’t sound so bad, but while it was happening, it was a nightmare.

    posted by C. Rush on 10-4-2007 at 8:55 am

55. I live in Chicago now, but I am originally from Kentucky. I lived in a 98 year old condo on the 3rd floor. This luxurious antique lacked airconditioning, so every night we would open all the windows to ventilate. One night I woke up to my wienerdog, Lilla, barking more violently than normal. After a quick run to the living room, I discovered her in an olympic sprint around the race track that was our living room. “Poor Lilla,” I thought, “she’s lost her little, doggie marbles.” I continued to think this until I noticed that she was looking up. I followed her example and there was a fairly large bat circling wildly around the ceiling. My whole family was alerted in seconds. My brother is a very angry person. His rest was disturbed and this bat must pay. Within a minute of the bat disturbing our sleep my brother had his baseball bat out. I am aware of the irony here. After one sleepy swing the bat went sailing across the room and made contact with my unexpecting face, right across my cheek. Lilla quickly annihilated the bat, as she does all small animals.
    I woke up that morning, tended to my small cheek scratch courtesy of two bats and walked down the stairs to find that my car has been broken into. Radio gone, window broken, any hope for the future destroyed.

    posted by Mason Thorne on 10-4-2007 at 8:58 am

56. Okay it was 1990 and I was a freshman in high school. I stayed after school one day to attend a home baseball game. School let out at 3:00 and I had a lot of time to kill until the 5:00 game. I couldn’t drive yet so I couldn’t go anywhere else, and had just transferred there so didn’t have any friends yet to spend time with…which in itself is excrutiating at that age. So I sat in the bleachers (two hours early) and waited…and waited…and waited. A little after 4:00, I almost instantaneously realized a little problem had set in…diarrhea.
    Not good.
    I waddled up the hill to the school. Being afterhours, every single door I tried was locked. I couldn’t even find a janitor or someone to let me in.
    Uh-oh.
    The pressure was building. There were lots of trees around so I figured “Eureka!” I would use the good ol’ “leaves as toilet paper” trick. I found a nice spot off away from the buildings and proceeded to handle my business. Focusing 100% on relieving myself and having already started, I suddenly noticed something…every tree around was a pine tree. Therefore, no “toilet paper”.
    It gets worse.
    Great. As I pondered what to do, a noise in the distance kept getting closer and closer. Leave it to me to just happen to pick my spot right next to a trail where the cross country team was on a practice run. Yes, they saw me and yes, they laughed. What a great introduction for the new kid in school, eh?
    Believe it or not, it DOES get worse.
    Soon they all pass and I’m finishing up. I’m in my squat position, embarassed about what had just transpired, but glad to have “relieved” myself at least. While in that squat, I’m holding onto a low branch to keep my balance. Well as luck would have it, the branch broke and I fell in the…well, you know…and it smeared all over my backside. Nice. All I can say is thank goodness I wasn’t wearing sandals, because there is probably still a pair of socks next to a tree that came in very handy that day.
    But hey, my school won the baseball game!

    posted by Brick on 10-4-2007 at 9:01 am

57. It was March 1989 and was traveling from Richmond, VA to visit friends in Belgium. The week before I left, the US State Dept. issued a terrorism warning - threats were made to hijack US flag commercial flights bound from Europe to the US. Not a problem, I was on a European carrier going from NYC to Brussels.

    Things started badly: a thunderstorm on the eastern seaboard delayed my initial flight out of Richmond. I arrived late in JFK and learned that my Sabena flight had already left. However, they could put me on Turk-Hava Airlines - I declined and choose a TWA flight. TWA was still okay - although it is a US carrier, it was Europe-bound so no terrorists would be on board. However, we had a 2 hour mechanical delay so my second flight was late taking off, too.

    The flight itself was uneventful - until the pilot announced that air traffic controllers in Brussels were on strike and we were directed to Munich, the original eventual destination of the TWA flight. All the Brussels’ passengers were herded into a holding area - we were told that we would stay there until the plane was readied for departure and we’d stop in Brussels to let off before the plane flew back to NYC. Uh oh - now I’m about to get on a US carrier headed for the USA - not good (made me wonder, briefly, if I should have flown on a Turkish Airline).

    After several hours in a Munich airport holding area (and I remember this is the same airport of the 1974 Israeli Olympic athlete massacre) we board the TWA plane. But no, we still can’t land in Brussels and we head to Amsterdam. Schipol Airport is a welcome sight (because no terrorists did anything on my flight) and TWA nicely ordered several buses to distribute the passengers to various European destinations. I get on the Brussels bus.

    Three hours later, the Brussels airport is in view - finally. Unfortunately, my double-decker bus is too tall to fit in the airport tunnel. The bus stops and unloads the passengers and we all have to carry our luggage the last two hundred yards to the airport.

    Of course, my friends were not there to meet me; I didn’t have their telephone number; and my French was too poor to be understood by the operator. I caught a train to their neighborhood - Waterloo. After two more hours of walking in a dark, strange neighborhood, I finally found their house - the note on the door said they’d gone out for the evening but the neighbor lady had the key. The rest of the trip was mercifully uneventful - that was enough.

    posted by Steve Law on 10-4-2007 at 9:08 am

58. Ironically, my Charlie browniest day was also one of the happiest days of my life - my wedding day.

    Because my husband was going to move from Pennsylvania to Miami (where I’ve lived since 1968) when we got married I thought it was only fair that we get married up there. “Up there” is a suburb of Philadelphia called Warminster. So I figured if I’m going to get married in the Northeast, I’ll do it in the fall because in Miami, we don’t get the whole leaves turning show.

    When I woke up that November morning it was POURING - not raining, no POURING! And it proceeded to pour till early evening.

    OK, so as I said it was pouring. Fine - got to the hairdressers, got my hair done (it was up so the humidity wasn’t an issue, that *and* the fact the amount of hair spray they put on me was IMO directly responsible for the fact that metropolitan Philadelphia hit 100 degrees F last Memorial Day). When I got back to the hotel, my father had lost the fancy buttons he was supposed to wear with the tuxedo and my mother had forgotten to pack pantyhose! Luckily before I left Miami I had my doctor prescribe Xanax for me.

    So eventually the buttons were found - however in the pictures the photographer took of my father and me before we left to the church, he doesn’t have them, he has regular buttons. And my aunt came to the rescue with the pantyhose - that wasn’t a problem for the pictures because we didn’t see my mom’s legs.

    Fine, so we’re ready, my father and I get into the beautiful antique Rolls Royce (black and gray) and drive to the church - still pouring by the way. When we get there I’m very calmly (remember the Xanax) trying to figure out how to get into the church without getting my dress wet and my train ruined. All of a sudden 5 men I had never met appear by the car carrying a white shower curtain: four of them were each holding up a corner of the curtain over my head like a canopy and the fifth one hitched up my dress and train - scandalously half way up my legs! - and the little procession goes into the church. It turns out the men were part of the church choir which my parents-in-law direct. The dress didn’t get a drop or stain on it!

    Of course at the end of the mass we wanted to do the limo shtick with the champagne and everybody blowing bubbles at us and the pictures - alas the rain (yes, still raining) changed those plans. It also changed the plans we had to go to a nearby park for pictures. Since our reception wasn’t till 6 p.m. my mother-in-law had already planned to have the out-of-towners to her house for a pre-reception reception while the wedding party had the pictures done. We figured OK, we’ll do the pictures at the reception place. So my brand-spanking-new husband and I get into the limo to head for the hotel when we hear “RIIIIP” - I immediately looked at my dress, but it was fine. My husband’s pants had ripped down the seam along his butt! I calmly (Xanax!) suggested we stop at his mom’s house so she could sew it up in a jiffy - God bless her she did!

    We got through the pictures and hors d’ouvres OK, and we get settled. A lovely dinner is served, of course I’m not eating a bit of it. All of a sudden I look to the table where my parents were sitting with all their friends, and all the men including my father are gone! Instantly I knew something was wrong, because my father would never abandon a good meal. I poked my husband and we went to find out what was happening. It turns out my father was having horrible pains in his side and the men had helped him to the restroom. My husband went to check it out - again thank God for Xanax - I maintained. My father suffered from kidney stones and apparently one of them decided to make an appearance on - of course - my wedding day!

    So I go out to the lobby to see him and he was pale as a ghost, he had to leave. He tells me to absolutely not cancel the party, that we knew what it was, nothing to worry about, everything would be fine - but he wanted to dance his dance with me before he left - I was definitely Daddy’s girl. So he walked back into the party room and I told the DJ to cue up the father/daughter, mother/son song NOW! Of course as I’m dancing with my dad I am openly sobbing like the dork that I am and feel my contact lenses fall out. I catch one and give it to my sister-in-law so I could finish the dance. At this point I’m blind from tears and lack of contact lenses. We finish the dance, my parents leave and I put my one remaining contact lens back in. I figured I could at least see half-way, but I really couldn’t see anything, I thought it must be because my eyes were irritated from crying.

    Throughout the reception everything remained blurry - I barely actually *saw* any of it. When we got to the B & B - it turns out both of my lenses had not fallen out, only one of them (the one I caught) had - so I wound up with two contacts in one eye, and none in the other. *That’s* why I couldn’t see anything!

    Thankfully everything ended well and 10 years later it makes for a fun story!

    posted by Hilda on 10-4-2007 at 9:16 am

59. This is more of a Charlie Brown weekend. I was in Atlanta for the summer working an internship. My husband was back hom