Comments (102)

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 home in Birmimgham, over two hours away. Friday after work I took my dog Linus (yes after the Peanuts character) to the dog park. It looked like rain so we headed back to the car. I try to crank it and it growls and then dies. I try it again, and nothing happens. Luckily I have one friend who lives in Atlanta. I call her to see if she can come pick me up. She’s in Mobile for the weekend. Great. But, she gets a friend of hers to come pick me up. The friend tries to jump my car off, but it keeps dying, she he just drives me back to my hotel.

    The next morning I get a tow truck to tow me and my car to the dealership and get a rental car. By some stroke of luck, they let me buy the parts needed somewhere else so that I can save some money. So I drive the rental car to an auto parts store, but get totally lost and spend half a day trying to find my way back to the hotel. I’m so mad, that I decide I’ll go to the parts store on Sunday morning.

    Sunday morning rolls around and I get up and go out to the car. What do I see? A flat tire on the rental! It’s roasting hot outside, but I manage to get the tire changed and take it back to the dealership to trade out for a new rental. I get the new car, drive to the auto parts store. As I’m purchasing the new alternator and battery, I accidentally give them my debit card instead of credit card. They ring it up, and I realize what I did. The transaction would overdraw my account if I let it go through so I tell them I need to put it on my credit card instead. They return it to the debit card, and put it on the credit card. Just ot be safe, I called my bank to let them know and make sure I wasn’t going to have any fees. Their response, “Oh it will all work itself out tonight, don’t worry!” I should have worried. That night the return didn’t go through and I accrued $360 in overdraft fees. My account was tied up for two weeks because of that.

    I finally get everything taken care of. It’s Sunday night and I decide to rent a video and stay in the hotel since I’ve had so much bad luck. I get to the store and rent two movies. The total? $6.66. A sure sign that bad mojo is in my life. As I’m going to pay, I pull out my wallet, and a certain feminine hygiene product falls out onto the cashier’s keyboard. It’s a 17 year old boy who looks mortified. He hands it back to me without looking at me. I get out of there as quickly as I can.

    I don’t know if I’ll ever go back to that dog park again!

    posted by Brandy Nix on 10-4-2007 at 9:20 am

60. These stories are tragically hilarious! Here’s my contribution, which happened not to me but to my lifelong best friend. The two of us attend a university about 7 hours away from our parents’ homes (which are about an hour apart from each other). She was making the now very familiar trip back home to see her parents and brother when, like a seen out of the movie Duel, she somehow enraged another, slower motorist by passing her. This driver from hell proceeded to harass my friend and stalk her for miles along the turnpike: tailgating, horn honking, pulling up next to and glaring, and a number of other activities any rational person would consider dangerous to attempt on a busy highway.

    My friend is sincerely terrified and thinking this woman might follow her all the way home. Fortunately, the woman fially turns off and my friend cries tears of joy. Then it starts to rain. My friend is close to home at this point and makes her now customary stop at a particular gas station located at a particular exit to fill up. She is the only customer there, along with a very nice cashier and and a not so nice manager. She never carries cash, so she goes into the gas station to pay with her card only to find that it has been declined. This gas station does not accept checks, so my friend has no way to pay and the manager has no sympathy.

    The rain has by this time become a torrent. She offers to call her father back home so that he can give his card number over the phone in order to pay for her gas, but at this point, her phone dies. She uses the gas station phone to call and procure his card number, but before the attendant can run the number in the machine, the storm fries the generator and the power goes out, redering the card machine useless.

    With no way to pay for the gas and no way to tell her parents of the mishap, my friend is basically held hostage at the gas station by the manager, who does not believe in the honor system. After two agonizig hours of waiting for the power to come back, the very nice cashier tells my friend that she will pay for the gas out of her own pocket and tells my friend to slip out and leave while the manager is distracted. After a tearful ride home, she has a fine time with the family.

    To cap this story off, my friend resolves to stop at the gas station on her way back and thank the attendant and pay her back for the gas. When she arrives, she finds out that the cashier was fired for letting her leave.

    Good grief!

    posted by Briana G on 10-4-2007 at 9:41 am

61. I like microwaved eggs because they are quick and easy to make, but I hate the mess they leave. No matter how much cooking spray I put in my chosen egg-cooking container, regardless of what type it is, there is always cooked-on egg residue left behind. This egg residue is typically extremely well bonded to the container and takes massive amounts of scrubbing to clean off. (And, no, Mr. Sears Dishwasher Sales Person, it does NOT come off in the new dishwasher!)

    One day recently I decided that I was going to let the ‘incredible edible egg’ handle the problem for me. I took a pin and poked a quarter inch hole in one end of the shell to let off steam, then put the egg on a plate in the microwave for 30 seconds. I checked it at that time and it was not quite done, but it was becoming a hard boiled egg–fast and easy—and with NO MESS! Man, was I proud of myself and extremely excited! I cooked it for 20 seconds more and then took it out.

    I sat down at the table, gloating to my teenage daughter that I had overcome the challenge of the messy egg bowl! I peeled off the shell with much anticipation. There on my plate sat a hard boiled egg–cooked in the microwave to perfection (I was quite sure) and with absolutely no mess! I was ready to taste my success. I picked up my fork, plunged the tines into my masterpiece and….it EXPLODED! With a ‘poof’ sound, the heated air and millions of pieces of egg yolk escaped from the center of the egg. Not only did I have egg on MY face, I had egg on my daughter’s face, her homework, my table, my clothes, and the floor (the dog was okay with this, however). Because of the great pressure in the center of the egg, incredibly everything blew out far enough that I did NOT have a messy plate–so my endeavor must be considered a success! GOOD GRIEF! (Warning…do not try this at home!)

    posted by Paula on 10-4-2007 at 9:53 am

62. My childhood was full of mishaps – I slid head first down a gravel covered boat ramp, I fell in a dry creek bed and cracked my brand new front tooth while trying to impress a boy, I slipped while hiking and landed arse-down in a cactus. None of these, however, compare to, “The Field Trip To The San Juan Capistrano Mission.”

    For those not from the fine state of California – 4th grade (and only 4th grade) is dedicated to California history. A whole unit is spent studying the Spanish colonization and the mission period. Inevitably, a field trip is taken to the closest mission. Our local mission is the Capistrano Mission, of the Swallows coming back fame.

    For some reason, only the GATE students were allowed to go on the field trip. At that time I was one of only two “gifted” students at my school. My teacher, Mrs. Knauer, some other girl (whose name escapes me) and I stood outside waiting for the bus. I’ve never been much of a girly girl – but my mom dressed me up in lavender and white dress with hearts on it, and new white mary janes (it was the 80’s, after all.) The bus pulls up, we get on board…… and are faced with a bus full of kids wearing grubby clothes and carrying canteens. The bus driver shuts the door and takes off before we can figure out what is going on.

    It seems that Mrs. Knauer read the memo wrong – we were actually going hiking in the hills BEHIND the mission.

    Good sports that we are – we agree to go hiking in our fancy clothes. We start walking up the trail, getting more and more thirsty and dusty by the second. The Santa Ana winds were whipping through our hair, blasting dirt into our eyes. As we near the precipice, I start to lose my footing.

    For some odd reason, there was an iron post sticking up out of the ground – the marker for some long forgotten “you are here” sign. Well, as this was the only thing I could possibly hurt myself on, Fate gave my poorly balanced self a push, I tripped, and landed on my hip, on the post.

    The wind knocked out of me, I lay in the dirt, mortified beyond belief. Mrs. Knauer and the guide help me up. I distinctly remember Mrs. Knauer asking, “do you think you’re hurt badly enough to need a helicopter to come get you? That would get us off this mountain.” Luckily, I was able to walk, with assistance. Mrs. Knauer and I hobble off the hill, while the rest of the group marched on.

    I don’t really remember the trip back to Riverside, but I do remember my folks picking me up. Face dirty and tear streaked, my new dress was torn, my new mary janes scuffed beyond repair. I was a mess. We went to the emergency room, where they X-rayed my hip; the bone was bruised, but not broken. Then, we went to Carrow’s for dinner.

    Today, at 32 I can laugh at my own misfortune. However, dear reader – all these years later, I have still never been inside the San Juan Capistrano Mission.

    posted by Candice on 10-4-2007 at 10:25 am

63. I’m not sure if this truly fits the Charlie Brown catagory but it was quite the day…

    Chapter 1
    How it All Began…

    When we were getting off the plane in Vegas a few weeks ago I noticed a girl ahead of me who has hair very similar to mine (in other words she has about 4 hairs on her head and they are all very fine). Since the plane originated in Houston I decided to ask her who cut her hair.

    Chapter 2
    The Ride…

    After carefully following directions I pull up in front of a small house in a residential neighborhood. As I make my way to the front door there is a bike partially blocking the path. The bike makes me smile because it’s one of those 1950 Schwinns with a fat seat, fenders over the fat tires, and two baskets on each side behind the seat.

    I walk up to the door and peer in. It looks like a regular house. Just as I’m about to walk back out to the curb to check that I’m definitely at the right address I hear, “Come in!” and then a short, gray haired, gay guy (Rene’) shows up with hands dripping in hair dye. “Come on in, I’m in the middle of a color” he says walking away. I follow him. He says, “Why don’t you put on a smock, the brown one should do.” (they’re all brown).

    So I grab my brown smock and go into the bathroom to change. At first it appears that there is no light switch but after careful review I see that there is a light switch it has just been cleverly covered in a little piece of wood that has been cleverly covered in the metallic-like, faux finished…..err wall paper.

    I put on my smock and head back to the “salon”. This room is done in a (possibly worse) faux finished bright pink paint scheme. I like it. I’m instructed to sit in the wash bowl chair (it’s the only chair in there). Rene continues to do his other client, Nancy’s, color but strikes up a conversation with me. Nancy says nothing but then she’s pretty absorbed in the bag of Goldfish she’s eating.

    Rene finishes with Nancy who now has color splattered all over her face. He leads Nancy to the dining room and instructs her to sit there and read The Secret, then he gets her another bag of Goldfish. I frantically search my purse for a napkin or tissue or something to sop up hair dye.

    He comes bounding back into the room to fully meet his new client. Now I can honestly tell you that I have NO IDEA what brought up his age but somehow he mentioned that he was 66. I would have put him around 50, 52 tops so I am appropriately ooohing and ahhing and telling him my thoughts on the matter when WHOOSH – off comes his shirt!! He exclaims, “AND THIS IS MY BODY!!” This is HYSTERICAL to me!! I have to say it looked pretty good – tight abs, and the beginning of some small pecs and biceps. He goes on to tell me that he has been working with a trainer for 7 months but that it’s really all genetics. He then continues on to tell me about his beautiful olive skin “which still has plenty of collagen”. He did have really nice skin and not a hair in sight on that body.

    The excitement is over and we get to work on the real reason I came. I tell him that I have been “touching up” my own hair for too long and have managed to get it to the most dull, drab brown known to man. He agrees that it doesn’t go with my skin tone and whips out the little book of colored hair (ladies you know the one). He starts laying the different strands on my arm and saying things like, “See how this one totally changes your skin tone and that one makes you look yellow?” I don’t see it so I tell him that he is the expert in the field and that I will defer to his judgement. He LOVES this!!

    Then Rene explains that he needs to wash and condition my hair first and that he is the ONLY person that does it this way. This is true I think because every other salon I’ve been too just combs out my hair and puts the color on dry. Of course I had JUST washed and conditioned my hair my very own self before I came but since I LOVE to have my hair washed and I know he will also have to wash it after the color I’m sensing a two for one deal. I’m happy.

    Washing is over, time to start the cut. Edward Scissorhands works happily away and we are having a nice conversation. He says that he never drives anymore but rather rides his bike everywhere. He tells me that some people get old at 66 but that he is just starting to live. One of his goals is to ride in the MS-150 (a race from Houston to Austin) next year. I tell him I think he’ll need a new bike.

    Then from the other room we hear Nancy.
    Nancy: “Renee…RENEE??!!”
    Rene: “Sigh…WHAT”
    Nancy: “How do you think my color is coming along?”
    Rene: “I thinks it’s fine.”
    Nancy: “Well I’ve been sitting here along time and I don’t want my highlights to be white”
    Rene: “SIGH”…leaves room

    Apparently he checks Nancy’s highlights and then tells her that he thinks she needs to sit under the dryer for a few minutes. Then he comes back to me and says:

    “We should be OK now I put her under the dryer AND SHE ALWAYS FALLS ASLEEP THERE.”

    Rene decides that he should probably go ahead and start my base color and then he will cut and highlight after he’s finished with Nancy.

    It’s my turn to be lead to the dining room. On the way he asks me what sign I am. I tell him Leo. When we get to the dining room he whips out a huge copy of Town and Country Magazine, turns straight to the Horoscope section and says, “I’m a Libra. My horoscope was fabulous this month, read it!” Then he leaves the room (no offer of Goldfish for me).

    Within minutes Rene is back. I don’t know, maybe he senses my attention span issues because he has recipes and blank recipe cards. I think he might have brought me crayons and a coloring book if he had found that first. But I love recipes so I am delighted!! There are several recipes but only 3 blank cards so this definitely gives me something to do.

    In the mean time in the other room I hear Nancy say, “How did this dye get all over my face?!”
    Rene: “What dye?”
    Nancy: “The brown spots all over my face.”
    Rene: “It’s not dye I never let that happen.”
    Nancy: “Well it wasn’t on my face when I got here?!”

    Then they must be trying to rub it off or something because I finally here Rene say, “Oh here, just put some foundation on it!”

    So anyway I finish my recipe copying and am flipping through Town and Country. It seems like I’ve been sitting there with color on my head for a long time but I’m not about to say anything. I don’t want to be put under the dryer. There’s no telling what he has blowing out of that thing that makes people pass out.

    He finally calls me back and I wait as he puts the finishing touches on Nancy. She is instructing him at every step. It’s time for her to go and she remembers that she has his Fabuloso (a Mexican $1.89 cleaner sort of like Spic -n- Span or 409). She mentions this several times before finally asking him how much she owes. He tells her and she says that she will subtract the Fabuloso from her bill. I later find out that Rene has been doing Nancy’s hair for 25 years and that she has never tipped him…..”Never even BROUGHT him anything!” *make mental note to bring Rene trinkets or Fabuloso*

    On the way out she asks Rene if he will pick up some instant espresso for her next time he goes to the store. The reason I’m telling you all this is that they apparently live in the same neighborhood and go to the SAME store. I’m not sure what all the picking up and exchanging is about. I don’t ask because I don’t want to be part of the co-op.

    So hair cut and highlights finished I’m back getting my SECOND washing of the day!! I’m laying there with my head in the bowl, eyes closed when Rene says, “Now do you mind if I just clean you up a little?”

    Minor Panic. What does this mean??!! Is he going to correct my grammar. Will I have to walk up and down the hall with books on my head? I’m afraid to ask and afraid to open my eyes so I do what any good southern girl would do and say, “OK”.

    Turns out he wants to wax my eyebrows. He decides there are about 3 stragglers on my right eyebrow, my left is fine. I remembered that I did start “cleaning up” my eyebrows that morning and did do the left one but I must have gotten distracted and forgotten the right. Anyway, hot wax, rip, all done.

    We’ve moved back to the salon chair when he whips out this bottle of make-up. He says, “See this color? It’s called warm beige. It’s perfect for your skin tone.” and then he starts applying it OVER the makeup I’m ALREADY wearing!!??

    I swear you guys! I am looking around waiting for a white rabbit with a watch to come hopping through any minute!!

    Rene continued with “smokey gray” eyeshadow and bright red lips (I have pencil lips and this certainly does NOT need to be accentuated with red lip stick).

    He then blows and sprays and boofs my hair into volumes and heights that I never knew were possible. Where did he get all that hair?? The cool thing was that it wasn’t like old lady hair where they have it rolled, then sit under the dryer, then have is teased, then sprayed with half a can of hair spray before carefully molding it into the shape of a football helmet. My hair was big and full but it was actually soft and shiny!!

    My appointment was at 11:15. It’s now nearly 2:30. I pay Rene and bid him adieu.

    Single Eyebrow waxing: free
    Expert Makeup Application: free
    Leaving the salon looking like a drag queen impersonating your mother: Priceless!

    posted by golfGirl on 10-4-2007 at 10:37 am

64. My husband had a brilliant epiphany one spring to send our not quite one year old and I to upstate New York to visit his parents. I was still not happy about his previous plan to move us from Cape Cod to Oregon during my eighth month of pregnancy. After getting our son, my carry on, his diaper bag, my purse, a stroller and one car seat throught security I, of course was one of the lucky ones randomly selected to remove my shoes. (This in the years prior to the current rule).
    Upon arriving in Newark I had to wait for my strller to be brought up from the cargo area. I loaded my son, my carry on, his diaper bag, car seat and my purse atop the stroller and ran through the terminal as the flight had landed “a little behind schedule”. I arrived at the gate for our flight to Albany only to be told that I had been bumped at the last minute but another flight was leaving in 3 hours. Spending 3 hours in an airport terminal with a not-quite one year old is torture rarely rivaled in our country. My in-laws, living 2 hours from Albany were already a the airport waiting and I had no way of reaching them as Dad refuses to pay roaming charges. We finally made it to Albany, drove the two hours home and had a great week.
    After the two hour drive back to Albany we boarded without incident however because of size restrictions my diaper bag had to be placed under the plane. Mom and Dad watched us taxi down all set for take off and left for home. We were then informed by the captain that due to storms in Newark we were returning to the gate but would not have to de-plane as we would soon be granted clearance. My son chose then to not only spit up but out as well. No diaper bag and a small plane make for grumpy passengers. We were then instructed to deplane as the flight was cancelled but another would leave at the next scheduled flight an hour or so later. Because we were leaving shortly after, no cargo was taken off. I pleaded for my diaper bag using my son’s toxicity as a threat. Five minutes before boarding, our flight was cancelled. Next one the following morning. I waited another hour for Mom and Dad to get home only to tell them that I was stranded and needed them to come back and get us. Another 2 hours for Mom to return. Finally something good came my way. As I was sitting at one of the phones in the phone bank I saw a paper bill on the floor. It was a hundred! I looked and insted of good ol’ Benjamin it had the smarmy face of a local televangelist in the center and on the back extolling the treasures that awaited me in Heaven. Hey Lucy, here’s my nickle.

    posted by Susan P. on 10-4-2007 at 10:54 am

65. My family has adventures, not vacations, and these are usually on motorcycles: Dad and my brother on one, Mom and my sister on another and me in my sidecar. Needless to say, our adventures are memorable.
    The most memorable of them all was the Weber Family Challenge 2003 to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Many stories came home with us from that adventure, but by far the most popular is the Love Bug Incident.
    I don’t remember much about that morning, just a typical day of traveling. I was bored and hungry as I listened to Mom and Dad discussing where we would have lunch over the CB. As we pulled into an old parking lot, I looked up to see an old shack that looked like it was held together with grease. Adding to the picture were swarms of little black bugs that looked a little like fireflies, all of them in pairs that were attached at the end – Love Bugs.
    The restaurant experience was an adventure in itself. All things on the menu were spelled like they’re pronounced (Aig Samich). After a nice long rest and about five tumblers of sweet tea we were off. I was stuck transporting the leftover puhtaytah lawgs (potato wedges).
    It never occurred to me that Love Bugs might want a ride in my sidecar, so I was in high spirits as we set out. The sky was overcast and it had begun to sprinkle when I noticed a little bug sitting on my dashboard, which I killed. I don’t think that the average Love Bug has much of a smell, but mixed with old potato log, it wasn’t pleasant. I was a little paranoid now, and began checking everywhere for more bugs. I didn’t find any – until I noticed another dead one sitting on my dashboard. And then another. And another. I looked up, down, in, out, everywhere, but I couldn’t find where they were coming from. Worse, they weren’t really dead, only knocked out. Soon my personal space was invaded by at least twenty bugs. At last I discovered that they were coming in through the gaps in between the snaps that held on my cover.
    This called for action. I pulled out some masking tape and tried to seal the gaps. For a few minutes it seemed to work, but the rain was falling harder now and the water was getting my tape wet and making it fall off, caught bugs included. Frantically, I grabbed my clicker for the CB and tried to explain my situation, only to realize that my clicker hadn’t worked since we left the driveway back home. That didn’t stop me from trying. I was desperate, screaming into my microphone as more and more dropped. The whole sidecar was crawling with them.
    I opened the side flap of the cover, reached out my hand, grabbed the leg of Dad’s blue jeans and tugged. He glanced down. I yelled as loud as I could, but he just shook his head and kept riding. I sat back and shivered until I couldn’t take it any longer. I reached out and grabbed his pant leg again, yanking on it as hard as I could. He looked down as I screamed as loud as I could, crying. My face was beet red and I was terrified. But once again Dad rode on – and then pulled over!
    As soon as we were stopped I ripped open the cover and leapt out, a swarm of Love Bugs following me. A cloud of them rose out of the grass next to the road and covered my sidecar. I ran around like a madwoman, trying to get away. Eventually my family was able to calm me down, removing the cover of my sidecar until we reached a flooded, out-of-power Rest Area.
    The rain calmed me, but didn’t stop. We finally set out in the rain and eventually rode out of the downpour. That night we reached our destination. The air was cool, the sky was clear, life was good.
    All in all, we had a great time, and made lots of memories- but the sidecar will never smell the same.

    posted by Rebekkah on 10-4-2007 at 10:58 am

66. This began on the the day I was married. After our wedding reception, my wife and I were to spend the night at a luxury hotel in downtown Detroit. Our best man, drove us to the hotel and told us that he would return the next morning to drive us to the train station across the river in Windsor, Ontario. (My wife and I had made plan to spen our honeymoon in Stratford and Toronto, Ontario.) Since our train was scheduled to leave the station at 8:00 a.m. the next morning, he was to pick us up at 7:00. This is when the trouble started. My wife and i woke the next morning and prepared for our trip. We checked out of the hotel and began our wait in the hotel lobby for our ride to the train station. When our best man did not arrive by 7:15, we became a little worried. We tried to call his house, but no one answered. We assumed that he was on his way to pick us up, but when he did not arrive at 7:30 we began to panic and called his girl friend to find out where he may be (this was before the advent of cell phones). She did not know where he was and told us she would find out and call us right back. She finally called us (long after the departure of our scheduled train) and told us that he had overslept and never heard the phone ringing. Knowing that he caused us to miss our train, he volunteered to drive us to Stratford (about 160 miles away). He picked us up at the hotel and away we went.

    As we made our way to Stratford, I noticed that the car was making an unusual noise and I asked our best man (the driver) to pull over on the side of the highway so we could check it out. Needless to say, the car had a flat tire. We were lucky from the standpoint that the car did have a spare so we started to make the change. The driver commenced to jack up the car while at the same time a State police officer stopped to offer his assistance. We told the police officer, that we had the situation in hand and he left. Before we started to remove the flat tire I asked the driver if he had applied his parking brake. He indicated that he hadn’t so I opened the driver’s door and sat down to apply the parking brake. The car was jacked up in the back and when I sat down in the car it caused it to slip off of the jack and the jack became lodged in the side of the car. We were unable to extricate the jack from the car. We were jsut stuck. At that very moment our driver’s girl friend (who had come along for the ride) attempted to present a positive outlook on all that had happened. She said, “Even though things look bad now, at least it isn’t raining.” As soon as these words escaped her lips, it started to pour down rain. Since we were afraid to go back into the car because we did not want to lodge the jack further into the bumper, we stood outside and got soaking wet.

    Eventually the rain passed and we were able to dislodge the jack and change the tire. Our journey continued without any more mishaps and we made it to our destination safely.

    posted by Tom K on 10-4-2007 at 11:12 am

67. I happen to be very accident prone, as the broken bones and nicks and cuts on my hands can attest to. But in this case, I think my Charlie Brown day was more of a CB long Memorial Day weekend.

    About 6 years ago, I offered to help a friend out in her costume shop. I figured, I had the time, knew how to sew and could use the good karma so why not? On the way there I got distracted and took the wrong exit faster than I should have. I ended up losing control of my car and driving up, down and over the grass median separating the off and on ramps, crossing the on ramp and finally stopping on the grass on the other side of the ramp. Miraculously, my car was relatively unharmed.

    The next night I packed up my car to head to Boston from NYC to visit my parents. It was raining pretty hard and it looked like lightening was striking around the area of I95, so I decided to travel more in-country and up I-86. To get there, you have to take the Pkwy, which (apparently) has a tendency to flood with heavy rains.

    I think I made it about 30 miles before I started thinking I should get off the road. Suddenly, my car stopped. I called AAA- their trucks are not allowed on the parkway, but they would try and call someone local for me. I called my father, a part time mechanic; he is not sure what the problem could be. All I could do was sit back, try to keep my cool, and wait for some sort of help to come. Luckily, there are other people who were stopped as well. Meanwhile, the wash of the cars that were going by me started to move my car. By time the rain had stopped and drained, my car was about 100 yards away from where it stopped.

    As it ends up, apparently the air intake valves on New VW Beetles (my car) are on the bottom of the car. Because the water was so high, the car was pulling up water instead of air which caused the rods in my motor to bend and ruin it. Tony, the greatest mechanic ever, from Pelham took me to the nearest train station, made sure I had money to get home or where ever I was headed and fixed my car up better than new.

    I can’t tell you how many offers I got for paddles for my car that year. But, I learned two valuable things from my weekend- VWs are water tight and can off road when needed.

    posted by Karen on 10-4-2007 at 11:13 am

68. We were at the beach in Southern California. Man! What a great day! That should have been my first clue.

    Mid-afternoon, we start to pack up to head home. It’s a 1 1/2 hour drive and we need to pick Dad up from work. As we’re schlepping the stuff to the car, a big, loud and scary guy runs up and starts shouting about me “disrespecting” him! ??? I don’t know what’s going on but I just tried to keep myself between him and my boys (6 & 7). This all escalates into him chest-bumping me, spitting in my face and screaming at me until his friend runs up and pulls him away down the street.
    I hustled the kids to the car and go back to get the last load of stuff. While I’m going back to the car, I wave and call to friends a relieved “Good-bye”. Oops. That guy saw me and took exception to me still being somewhat cheerful. He ran over and slugged me in the face and slung me around in the parking lot, generally beating me. I pull away and have to actually ASK people to go get the police!
    The police come. I ask the officer to please follow over to the car so I can reassure my boys (I could see them the whole time and they saw the whole incident). He blocked my way, called me uncooperative and combative! I said, “Follow me or don’t but my kids need me.” He does and then begins to question me by the car. He accuses me of calling the bad guy names and being a bigot (I’m white, the bad guy happened to be black) and then (with an implied “or else”)tells me I had better calm down (yes, I was weeping softly but it wasn’t like I was hysterical or anything!).
    This all culminates with the officer saying I could press charges but then my address would be public record and who knows what kind of “friends” the guy has. I don’t think the cop was trying to be helpfull. I actually felt more threatened by the cop than the 6′3″, 245# guy who beat me!
    So, I eventually leave. It is now time to pick up hubby but I’m still 1 1/2 hours away. I stop at a payphone and call him. Of course, the story all comes out between sobs and tears.
    I get over it and head down the road. 8-10 miles later, I see the temp. gage on the dash hit the red! Pull over, let it cool, add water. I don’t see a leak so I keep going… at least for another 7 miles. Pull over, cool, add water, continue on. 6 miles. Same story. I decided I need to call the hubster and tell him to figure a way to come rescue us (we are strapped for $$$. We can’t afford to tow this car. We can’t afford to pay a mechanic. My man has to be the one to work on it).
    He eventually gets there. Admires my developing black eye and other bruises. Pours some miracle stuff in the radiator and miracle of miracles, it works!!! Some good luck!
    On the way home, we discuss our financial predicament. New radiator is gonna cost big, we just spent an extra $35 for him to get to us and the miracle stuff. Then, he lets me know that he used the debit card to get the cash. Holy Cow! There was really only $2 left in that account cuz checks just hadn’t cleared yet! Now, we will have about $75 in over draft fees for the 3 checks coming in for under $10 each. Ugh!
    Okay… we will just work with it. We have always found a way when money has been tight. We can always sell some of our stuff. We have some nice stuff that I had inherited and collected. Let’s just be thankful the boys and I are alright.
    So… the 1 1/2 hour drive is over, we’re pulling into the driveway of our rural home. My honey say, “Babe, I told you to lock the gate. Shoot, you didn’t even close it.” Oh-oh. I did close it AND lock it.
    The door to the house is open, too.
    What the HECK!?
    We’d been robbed!
    Gone: wedding rings (didn’t want to lose them at the beach!)and other nice heirloom jewelry, 3 guns, borrowed TV & VCR, stereo, food from the fridge and a big tupperware of homemade cookies, an arrowhead collection and some sterling silver serving pieces, among other things.
    Well, I guess we won’t be selling anything to cover the $$ shortage. Mmm.
    So, I got beat up, hassled by the law, burned trying to nurse my car home, stranded at a taco stand for 2 hours with no money and 2 hungry little boys, a frustrated-husband rescue, revelation of further money worries, robbed of family heirlooms and sentimental treasures, our guns in the hands of unprincipled bad guys, door and gate broken… AND WE CAN’T EVEN HAVE SOME MILK AND FRESH SNICKERDOODLE COOKIES TO SOOTH OUR SORROW AND WATCH A LITTLE TV TO DISTRACT US!!!!!!!!!!!
    What a day… heck, it all happened between 3:45 and 8:00 pm.
    Good Grief is right!

    posted by Jen on 10-4-2007 at 11:41 am

69. One summer, 18 year ago, my parents decide to take our entire family on a camping trip to the East Coast of Canada (PEI, Nova Scotia) and U.S. (Maine). A rather ambitious task, considering they had five children under the age of 12.

    New camping equipment was purchased for the first time camping trip. Five children, and all their various belongings were packed into the Toyota Previa minivan, and the 10 hour car ride from Ontario to Maine began.

    Upon arriving in Maine, things began to go terribly, horribly wrong.

    At the time of our trip, Maine was beign hit by the tail end of a tornado. One morning my father took all of us kids swimming while mom tidied up after breakfast. A half hour into our swim, mom came running toward the pool, yelling that our tent was blowing away. True enough a gust of wind had ripped our tent from the ground and was blowing it into the ocean.

    After recovering our tent, my parents decided they would relocate to a better sheltered camping sight.The next few days passed by without incident. The night before we were traveling to PEI, our entire family celebrated with seafood – 7 lobsters, bought from a local ‘lobster boil’, and a variety of clams. Six hours later, in the middle of the night, the celebratory mood ended when 5 out of 7 family members became severely ill with food poisoning. The next morning ’soiled’ clothing and sleeping bags were loaded into garbage bags, and packed with all our other belongings on the roof racks of our van as we made the trip to PEI.

    While we were traveling over a small bridge in Maine, we were flagged down by two men driving motorcycles. My parents pulled the van over, and were told much to their dismay, that several bags had fallen off our roof several miles back. Mom and Dad backtracked to see if our lost luggage could be recovered, but it was nowhere to be found.

    Upon arriving in PEI, and unpacking, my parents discovered that they had lost 4 of the clean sleeping bags while traveling over the bridge. The only ones that remained were the ones soiled from the previous nights seafood fiasco. New sleeping bags were purchased, laundry was done, and our family was determined to make the most of our time in PEI. Mother nature however, was determined to give our family a run for their money. Our four days in PEI were spent in the rain at a low-lying campsite. Flooding, and mosquitos were a huge problem. Several nights were passed with half of the family sleeping in the tent, while the other slept in the van.

    Always optimistic, we were certain that Nova Scotia would bring better weather, and new positive adventures. After biding farewell to PEI, our van was packed up again, and we headed to the ferry that would take us to Nova Scotia.

    Our van was directed onto the ferry, and parked so we could enjoy the boat ride. Upon trying to exit the ferry, the horrible realization was made that we were directed into a lane that didn’t provide enough clearance. Too little, too late. As our van drove off the ferry, the luggage, and the roof racks were ripped off the top of the van by the boat’s emergency fire sprinkler system.

    That was it. My parents, who had been amazingly tolerant over the past 10 days had reached their breaking point. After packing all the luggage, the roof racks and children into the van, and duct taping the holes in the van’s roof, we began the trip back home.

    We all thought that surely nothing could go wrong on the trip home. We were wrong. The fates were not finished with us, while we were driving through Quebec, a transport trailer ahead of us kicked up a stone that shattered the windshield of our vain.

    Needless to say, after this nightmare of a trip the camping gear was stowed away into a remote corner of the shed, and did not see daylight for a very long time.

    posted by Amy Bucking on 10-4-2007 at 11:50 am

70. I suppose this is a “brutally comic story,” but it happened to a couple of my high school buddies one night as I watched, some 40 years ago in central Florida. The three of us were out crusiing for chicks one night (in my car as usual since mine was the coolest – a 1965 Pontiac Lemans), when both Don and Bob (the names have been changed to protect the guilty) declared that they had to take a leak. We were on the south side of town and in those days there weren’t many businesses around that area that stayed open past 5:00. I offered to drive across town to the local S&S Drive-in, but Don told me to drive down a particualr dead end street, park the car, and he and Bob would get out and do their business. The street was dark as there were no streetlights, so I parked the car at the end of the street and they got out and walked around to the front of the car to water the grass along the curb. Don yelled for me to shut off the head lights. I did as directed and waited for them to finish. I breifly thought about flipping the headlights back on while they stood there holding their little weenies, but knew they would be pissed off (figuratively speaking) at me the rest of the night. I didn’t notice the car slowly coming down the street with its light off until it had pulled up next to my car. At that moment the driver turned on his headlights AND the lights mounted on top of his car (yep, it was a cop). Don and Bob turned around quickly trying to get their zippers back up and the expressions on their faces when they saw the police car is something I’ll never forget! They spent the next 15 minutes in the back seat of the patrol car being lectured on the vices of “indecent exposure” and “urinating on private property.” After that, needless to say, we never ventured too far from the bright lights of the boulevard where all the hangouts stayed open late and “facilities” were near by.

    posted by Jim Meaders on 10-4-2007 at 11:51 am

71. This story belongs to my sister, Colleen, who 1) is a neat freak; 2) taught Drivers’ Ed; 3) hasn’t missed a total of 4 classes in her whole college life (and she’s got hours after her Master’s).

    The Evening Before: She was driving to our brother’s home (that she was house-sitting for just one more day) and a car ran a light and into the side of her car. She persuaded our mother (who NEVER lends her car) to let her borrow it for just half a day so that she could attend class the the next morning.

    The Morning: She went out of my brother’s house to get the paper and the front door slammed shut (just like the movies!). So … she climbed over the fence in order to enter through the dog door. The golden labs really enjoyed the activity of “Auntie’s New Game” and barely let her in.

    She was late; the house was a wreck, but after class there’d be plenty of time to make things right before brother Tim and family got home. As she backed Mom’s car out of the garage (being careful because of the pillars and being unaccustomed to the larger automobile), she had the car door open to see better. Alas. She saw and avoided the pillars but not the garage door jamb on the other side. Brick and steel and be overcome by inertia. She decided not to go to class!

    She had no money. With glib salesmanship she persuaded the subdivision building foreman to fix the house, add it on to some other charge that my brother would pay, and never tell Tim that the problem ever existed. With even glibber salesmanship, she convinced the dealership to fix Mom’s car (including repainting, THAT DAY), charge the repairs to her own car and never tell Mom! (It was some bodyworks guy’s finest hour and he can’t tell anybody!)

    Unlike Charlie Brown, she did win. Mom complained that the shotgun door didn’t seem to close right (silence), and Tim mentioned that he had never noticed that the brick on the front of his garage didn’t seem to be aligned perfectly (silence), but she did get his house spiffed up and was placing the flowers on the table as they drove in the driveway. And she aced the course.

    I don’t know if anyone else has ever been told the truth, but by the time Colleen told me we were both on the floor in laughter.

    posted by Kathleen46 on 10-4-2007 at 12:15 pm

72. The Roadkilled- Party- Weekend

    A week before I planned a trip to visit some friends at Put-In-Bay (a small island built for parties), Ohio, I lost both of my only credit cards. When the time came to pack up my weekend bag, I planned accordingly and stopped at the bank to get enough cash to last me. Responsible thinking.
    The morning of my departure, I stopped at a gas station to fill up. Because it was so nice out, I took my time to stretch my legs and rest outside of my car while waiting. About 15 minutes after leaving the gas station, I decided to call my friend to get clearer directions. It was then I realized, I didn’t have my cell phone. Or my purse. Or all of my cash.
    I tore through traffic, sure that it was at the gas station being played through by some kids buying sticky food with my only money! About one block from the gas station, I saw my purse on the road, where it had been sitting for the past 20 minutes, being torn open by the rush of morning traffic. Tires were tearing up my bills, which were strewn about the road, my cell phone and digital camera were in pieces. I found my license about 40 feet from the purse, and some money stuck to the top of a gutter. I lost about $40 in cash and still haven’t calculated the cost of my destroyed phone and camera.
    I couldn’t believe what happened. It was then I remembered while leaning against my car, I left my purse on the roof. My body, rushing with adrenaline from stopping traffic and parading around the streets like a mad woman, got me to Put-In-Bay in record time. My friends couldn’t stop laughing when they heard my story and saw my crumpled bills and electronics. I warned them ahead of time, “Listen girls, I’ve obviously had quite a start to my day, I don’t have a cell phone, I don’t know where we are going tonight, you are all responsible for me the rest of the weekend.”
    So we got ready, and I calmed down. We got our round trip tickets for the ferry, which required we get back to the boat 2 AM for our return trip. The rest of the night was a blur of fun, dancing and drinks. Around 1:50, I realized I lost my friends (rather they lost me! I warned them!) and took off running to the ferry… just in time to watch it sail away. A random guy let me borrow his phone which is when I realized the only phone number of the friends I was with I had memorized was the girl who slept the deepest. She never answered. Not all night, not the next day.
    The 2 AM ferry was the last ferry of the night. Some other partygoers that missed the ship and I slept on the dock. Around 5 AM, I was able to board the early morning ferry and got back to steady ground. I found a cab driver that would take me back to my friend’s condo where we were all staying, but I wasn’t sure where it was, I had to give directions from memory (which at a groggy post party 5 am, wasn’t the sharpest)! He let me borrow his phone. She still wasn’t answering.
    Somehow I found my way there, but couldn’t find my friends there. They had apparently stayed somewhere closer to Put-In-Bay and didn’t do the 20 minute drive home. In my dress and heels, I had to break in through my friend’s window and sit there for three hours until they arrived home. They did stay at another girl’s apartment closer to the Island. And yes, these are dear friends of mine, one is a best friend of almost 13 years!
    Good grief, for sure!

    posted by Maggie Re' on 10-4-2007 at 12:21 pm

73. In fifth grade, our play for the year was “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” I was Peppermint Patty. During my song, I fell off the stage, into the audience. The ones sitting right by the stage were the kindergarteners. Now instead of just being “king of the school” as fifth grade was as high as we got, I was “the one who fell off the stage during the play”. My dad had it on tape for the longest time, and finally got rid of it after all my years of protest.

    posted by Samantha on 10-4-2007 at 12:47 pm

74. Just before Christmas of 2006, I was trying to get home to northern Michigan from graduate school in Oregon. I was in the middle of an experiment I couldn’t stop, so traveling with me were four live barnacles and a Nalgene bottle full of algae. A sleet storm delayed my departure one day, and I was pretty nervous when my barnacles and I boarded the plane the next morning. The first flight went fine. But when I got to Portland, the plane I was supposed to depart on had experienced terminal electrical failure and had to be put down (or whatever you do to terminally ill aircraft). The frazzled lady at the airline counter couldn’t book me through to my destination, but she could get me in the right state. I was given a yellow post-it note in lieu of an actual ticket and told that I’d be flying to Las Vegas, enjoying a twelve-hour layover, and then taking the red-eye to Detroit.

    I’d never been to Vegas before, so I decided that my barnacles and I should do the strip. Our stroll down sin city’s main drag was pretty interesting. I saw them shoot a commercial for the TV show Las Vegas and I got hit on by a rather large male prostitute who almost got a barnacle to the face.

    When I returned to the airport, I discovered my yellow post-it note ticket was valid but had earned me a designation as a “special security risk”. I got to go through the special security line and enjoy a full pat-down, while my barnacles got X-rayed and tested for the presence of explosives. I then spent fifteen minutes explaining to an overzealous Nevada TSA guy that barnacles were crustaceans, had no links to Al-Qaeda, and were not for eating. Finally, I was dismissed as a harmless nutcase and allowed to board my flight.

    I arrived in Detroit early the next morning. One piece of my luggage arrived via a different airline and was found in another terminal. The second piece had somehow managed to take my original flight plan and was already up north. I was overjoyed to see my Mom, who had driven two hundred miles to get me and had stayed the night with her friend in downtown Detroit. I asked her how her drive went. I almost fainted when she answered, “My car has been stolen.”

    posted by Christina on 10-4-2007 at 1:06 pm

75. It was back in the mid 80’s during the summer. My mom left work for the day and discovered her car had been stolen. It became quickly apparent that after 30 days, if the car went unrecovered, the insurance payout would be less than they owed on the car!

    About 2 weeks later a mystery woman started calling our home claiming to know where the car was, she said she hadn’t stolen it, and neither had her boyfriend though he currently had posession of said vehicle. I begged her to tell me where to find it, explaining how the insurance would be insufficient to cover the loss. She was afraid, and would only say it was very close to where we lived.

    Mom had an idea, and called the police chiefs in all of the surrounding communities of our home, described the car, and asked them to give the description to their officers. This works! With only a few day left until payout, a local police force finds the vehicle, great, right? Wrong!

    The car it self is not too damaged but it is missing its original tires and is sitting on 4 mismatched dead ones. The trouble starts when the insurance company wants to prorate the tires for replacement! My father explains they are not his tires, and a week long fight with the insuranc company insues over this issue.

    In the mean time, my parents get a call from the dealer where the car now sits awaiting repair. The car has been broken into while sitting on their lot and the sound system and CB radio has been stolen!!

    OK, things are looking up, the car has been returned the repairs have been made the tires have been repplaced and my dad gets a new tape deck to replace the CB, but wait theres more!

    In the follwing days mail, my parents get several parking tickets for said vehicle for 4 days during which the car was missing. They go to traffic court to clear this up. They take sworn affidavits from the poilce to prove the car was stolen during this time. They don’t have to pay for the tickets because the judge gives them (and I quote) the “benefit of the doubt”.

    Over the next several years someone tries to steal this car two more times, and we’ve been getting laughs out of this story ever since.

    posted by Kelly on 10-4-2007 at 1:48 pm

76. From my journal, October 26, 2005 True to the last detail:

    Here’s my day, today: got up at 5:45, showered, sang Happy Birthday to Duffy, who is SEVEN. Cooper turned FIVE on Sunday, and I can’t believe my “baby” is that old. Anyway, went to work, where I worked like a maniac, running three machines by myself and answering the phone, because dad was having surgery. On his bladder, again. He had bladder cancer last year, and while it is apparently not aggressive or invasive, it does tend to return. He has been having a cystoscopy every six months, and there were more lesions at his last one. So he had to go have them removed today.
    In any case, I picked Duffy up at school at 3, and brought him to the house so we could have cake with Mike before Mike went to work. After that, Duffy through a massive FIT because he didn’t want to do his homework (4 nights a week, in first grade, with weekly spelling tests. One of the words this week is YELLOW. I was still eating paste in 1st grade….) on his birthday. After I basically threatened him into doing it, he went off to play in the playroom. Where supposedly my dog is trained not to go. However, the recent discovery of pee stains all over the rug have lead me to the following argurment: someone is peeing on the playroom floor; theoretically, everyone in this house is potty trained/housebroken; Mario (the dog) must be peeing on the floor. OK, not great, but better than the image of Mike taking a leak on the rug. I digress.
    Duffy went to the playroom to get “purple guy” which is basically some dopey robotic-looking plastic action figure that he is disproportionately attached to. At this moment, I am on the phone with the newspaper, because, although I have spoken to three people to CANCEL Saturday delivery because, uh, the guy doesn’t bring the paper, they really don’t want to lose my $1 a week. ” STOP BOTHERING ME, you can’t do your job, so don’t try to make me feel better. I don’t have time for this! Just let me go, cancel it.” But he insists that he is going to credit me through the end of the year, because although I have already PAID through the end of the year, they find no record of the money, yet he feels compelled to credit this money to me. And this will be good for what, I don’t know, since the carrier brings me a paper MAYBE 50% of the time. Whatever. As I am literally saying WHATEVER, I hear a crying/screaming wail that makes me think someone has lost a limb. And someone has: purple guy.
    Mysteriously, someone who is not supposed to be going into the playroom has, in fact, gone into the playroom and chewed probably the one thing out of 14,352 toys that is going to be significant. Duffy is really, really upset. “THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE. MY BIRTHDAY IS RUINED!!!” and on and on.
    So of course, I tell him to stop crying, get his shoes on, we are going to Toys R Us. Because there is no problem so big that I can’t throw money (which I don’t have) at it and fix it. It is now 5:15 and we have not yet had dinner. Luckily, my mom calls and offers to bring me a pizza, since she is going by my house to get pizza for her and dad anyway. Thank you! Anyway. We go to Toys R Us, where thankfully they still have “purple guy”. Of course, I have to buy another Go-Bot vehicle to get him. $7.00. And you don’t think I am standing there with two boys and can get away with buying just the one? No. So, we buy TWO “purple guys”, and just for good measure, two different vehicles that have “reddish-orange guys”. And M&M tubes by the register. So $31.25 later, we head out to the parking lot. WHERE SOME JACKA** HAS SEVERELY INJURED MY CAR. The rear passenger door, and part of the front passenger door have had the paint on the lower portion removed TO THE METAL. And of course, no note or anything mildly human.
    So, since my car got hit in the mall parking lot LAST year, I know I am looking at at least $500 (the deductible) if I am going to fix this, which I pretty much have to if I don’t want the thing to rust. So I am actually CRYING while driving us home, and Duffy hands me a bag of pennies that he has in back, to help me fix my car. Which made me cry worse, because – really. And it’s now 7:10, and I still have to get them ready for bed and work out before I can go to bed because I have to get up at 5:45 tomorrow.

    posted by Nicole Muller on 10-4-2007 at 2:07 pm

77. Ok its time to rant, this weekend was terrible, between me loosing my job and Kim’s car trouble, we had hardly any time to collect ourselves. Although I am pissed at the entire thing I am glad it happened. I don’t want to sound disparaging or anything, but we needed to go through a bad event. I feel it is necessary for a couple to go through hard times, because it is only then you can find out what will happen when something goes wrong. But first some back story…

    Friday 15JUN07

    First thing is my part, I got fired from Wal-Mart, I don’t mind that, in fact I saw it coming, it is how it happened that pissed me off. Let me explain. First of all I was fired… or well “let go” is their words. I was in for a transfer up here in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Pella, here I would had been set. But now I have to wait 6 months to get rehired, or so I think. I am going to talk to Jason about it next week. The only reason I was fired is because I couldn’t keep up. Now in my defense, not many can and damn it I tried my hardest. People that have been there for years still have trouble getting it done. Now at the Pella store I wouldn’t have that issue.

    For one at the Ottumwa store I had somewhere between 10-15 pallets to do…. In the Pella store it’s less then 3. The ones they had the other night were one mix and two solids. A solid takes 10 min to do easy, a mixed pallet can take 15-45 min to do…. Big switch. Now they could have just transferred me and got it over with but they decided to fire me. I also had plans that night I could have done but they kept me the whole night. But then fired me at the end… I am glad I left a mess for them to clean up… ha ha ha.

    Now loosing your job sucks but Kim’s story is worse. After I got fired I called her, I needed someone, and not just anyone. I told her what happened and she came down to get me. When we left I was felling better so we decided to stop at Ghrams, which was one of our 20 things to do this summer. At Ghrams she noticed that there was fluid coming out from under the hood of her car… great! We popped the hood and found four one inch cracks in her radiator. I called my dad and he came and got us. At home she called a parts store (Spillmans) and found a radiator for it for about 50 bucks. My father offered to take her. Now this kind of scared me because it’s my girlfriend and my father together alone. Questions will be being asked. They drove all the way there only to find that it was the wrong part.

    I was at my house taking out the old one at this time; I still have the cuts to prove it. I really didn’t have a hard time doing it, with the exception of a few things. Well it was getting hot outside (it was actually hot all damn day) so we went to bed for about 6 hours. Some of the most well deserved sleep I have ever had, we have ever had. With this, the day was getting better. When we woke up the next thing we had to do hit us right in the face. We had to get us back to Pella, because even though I didn’t have a job Kim still did.

    Now I have one awesome father, and I tell you this because when we came out, the car was done and he offered to bring us to Pella. We told him when he dropped us off that we would be back the next day, as we did.

    Saturday 16JUN07:

    The next day after work we headed back to Ottumwa. Now Sarah, Kim’s roommate, gave us a ride. This does not surprise me because I think she could tell she was mad at her. But that’s her rant not mine. We got back to Ottumwa to meet her brother at my house. Now this is my first time ever meeting her brother… Not good. I still have no clue why we went there and just didn’t let her brother and my father take care of it. Well after that we had one hell of a time getting back to Pella. She called everybody she could and no one would do anything. I was at a loss because there was nothing I could do either. She did get a hold of one person, her boss, yes her boss, of all people. But her but is pretty cool so she said yes and we tried to give her directions, but it didn’t work. So we decided we would meet her half way, of sorts. We decided we’d meet her at McDonald’s. All I had to do was convince my dad. And that went surprisingly well. After we got to McDonald’s it was smooth sailing. Till we got home to the apartment, but that is her story, and she can tell you later.

    Signing off as always….. Peace and chicken grease y’all

    posted by Freddie L Fisher III on 10-4-2007 at 2:28 pm

78. Charlie Brown is my middle name.

    After a frantic morning of tackling an insurmountable pile of paperwork at my new job I found myself with only 20 free minutes to grab a quick lunch. My car is in the shop this week due to a Chicago break-in during my cross-country move to the Pacific Northwest from the East Coast. The bandits got away with my stereo, and all the contents of my car, leaving only the battered, empty shell of the shiny Subaru that once held my life’s possessions.

    Being without a car, short on time, and famished, I set off on foot across the street, where I had earlier noticed the radiant beacon of a Qdoba sign. Soon thereafter I found myself, 7-lb burrito in hand, faced with a seemingly simple choice: 1) Walk ALL the way around the elevated parking lot, out the strip mall driveway, and down to the sidewalk, taking essentially a giant inverted J-shaped trajectory (What a waste!); or 2) Opt to descend the ridiculously steep sloped man-made grassy berm separating the parking lot from the sidewalk four feet below.

    Ever conscious of my time constraint, I opted for choice #2 and began a cautious descent. Forgetting that this is Seattle, and the ground is almost always wet, my foot instantly slipped on the damp grass and I found myself careening through the air towards the sidewalk below. To the amusement of the 30 or so cars passing on the busy arterial byway just 3 feet away, I scrambled to wipe the mud from my pants, tend to my bleeding hand, and retrieve my soggy burrito from the bushes nearby.

    I of course returned ten minutes late to the office bloody and covered in mud with a smooshed burrito and no time to eat it.

    Good Grief!

    posted by Katie Wolff on 10-4-2007 at 3:26 pm

79. I just had to write this after reading Sue’s comment (number 38). Not to be the bearer of bad news Sue, but it sounds like you have lupus. My moher’s lived with it for years, and you are describing some of the symptoms. I would really recommend getting examined by a good doctor, you want to find a dermatologist who will listen to you. I really hope you read this, and if anybody on here knows Sue, please let her know. It’s really important to get treatment quickly.

    posted by Jess on 10-4-2007 at 4:02 pm

80. I lived in the house from hell for a year. The day I went see the house to rent it, it was in the process of being renovated. It looked awful! It was an old slave quarters from way back when, and while it was a great house, it needed a lot of work. I was assured that it would look completely different when I moved in. They lied. There were holes in the floor (where I could see through to underneath the house), holes in the window panes, and everything was coated in dirt/grease. So as I attempted to clean the house and cover as many holes as humanly possible with cardboard and a staple gun, a moth that could only be described as Mothra’s baby came flying out of the ceiling at me! Tired and scared, I tried to open the door to get out of the house, only to find that it was swollen shut due to the enormous amount of humidity in the house (no AC). I absolutely panicked! I called my mom (yes, I was 29 years old at the time) crying and screaming… she must’ve thought I was getting murdered!

    I finally got out of the house, and settled in, but in the time I lived there, something always seemed to live in the walls, there was a nice stench that came in through the one hole in the bathroom that I couldn’t cover (where the plumbing came up through the floor), three (yes three!) squirrels invaded my home on three separate occasions while I was out of town through the fireplace (the landlord insisted that they couldn’t come in there cause it was covered… he was wrong), one of which made a nest by ripping out the stuffing in the back of my recliner. I had a bat in the toilet once that would disappear and reappear randomly even after I put the lid down. And finally, I came home after a weekend away to find it raining in the dining room (the hot water pipe upstairs had burst), causing me to have to break down the swollen door to get in, and having professional disaster cleaners tear out the walls and ceiling (oh, and they discovered the carcass of the thing living in the wall). They found so much mold that I had to evacuate the house for my safety. I never went back!

    Good grief that was a BAD year!!

    posted by Rachel on 10-4-2007 at 6:41 pm

81. My worst charlie brown moment was when I ran into a former patient’s family at the mall (I am a Pediatric ICU nurse). After a bit of small talk, I asked how their child was doing…….they looked at me stone faced and said “She DIED…..you were THERE”. I was wishing the ground would open up and swallow me right then and there….how embarassing. The worst moment of their lives, but just another “day at the office” for me. sigh.

    posted by Lisa on 10-4-2007 at 7:01 pm

82. When the summer vacation ended in 1990, my wife and I and our two daughters began the trip into the abyss. The longer we sat in the Little Rock airport the more my seven year old daughter Jamie suffered a terrible earache. She cried with her head in my wife’s lap until we boarded. We had several flights before we landed in London. I had taught school the previous two years at a military base in England and we had left our new car with our chaplain for the summer. When we landed, we discovered that he had put 4000 miles on the odometer. We also learned it was the hottest summer in England since they had been keeping records. It was so hot Big Ben stopped working. We checked into our hotel, but had arrived too early to get into our room. We drove around London with a sick kid just to be in air-conditioning until our room was ready.

    We checked in, but there was no parking at the hotel, so I paid 25 Pounds, about 45 American dollars to park in a secure lot down the street. The only available space was right next to a pole that put a sizable scratch on our van. We walked to Burger King for lunch. My wife, Cindy, and daughter, Rebekah, had ordered, but Jamie wasn’t paying attention and I got angry, raising my voice, when she puked all over the floor, right where customers stand when ordering. Cindy grabbed her and rushed her up the stairs–onto which Jamie also puked– every few steps. I felt like a huge poop.

    After cleaning Jamie up and eating lunch we went to the hotel and asked about the nearest hospital. After an hour’s wait, a doctor gave us medicine for her ear infection. When we got back to the hotel, Cindy and Bekah were already laying in cool water in our un-airconditioned room’s huge bathtub. Jamie joined them immediately.

    Just before leaving for dinner Cindy said, “You better put your briefcase under the bed.” Upon our return we discovered our door had been kicked open. Clothes from suitcases were strewn on the floor. The contents of Cindy’s purse splayed across the bed. The traveler’s checks were missing, however the briefcase containing several thousand dollars in mixed currencies, both military and personal passports, and all our transportation information to our new assignment in the Netherlands lay undisturbed beneath the bed.

    We were given an apology and a new room. We just couldn’t give the “thief been in your room” medicine to Jamie so I walked back down to the hospital and explained to the same doctor what had happened and received brand new medicine. We were so unsettled by the break-in we weren’t about to leave our car in the “secure” lot, so I got it after about a tenth of the time I’d paid for, parking it inside the hotel’s front gate. Our new room was right across the street from a station for the subway. We listened to the voices of people going in and out all night.

    The next morning, with replacement traveler’s checks in the briefcase and a heat-exhausted Big Ben in our rear view mirror, we left, lucky to escape what had felt both literally and figuratively like 24 hours in hell.

    posted by Mike Rush on 10-4-2007 at 7:10 pm

83. Every family has one of those vacations. Everything seemed so perfect, so foolproof… and it turned out to be a disaster. You need a vacation to recover from the vacation. Perhaps you don’t talk about it or you refer to it as “an experience” or “a character-builder” (although “character-tester” might be a little more accurate!). Sometimes the best thing you can do is sit back and laugh–we’ve all been there.

    When I was 17, my family moved from Indianapolis to Valdosta, Georgia. We often decided to take advantage of our proximity to Florida. Sometimes we went spontaneously, sometimes the trips were planned. Labor Day Weekend 1996 was planned–poorly.

    The destination was Panama City Beach. This was henceforth known as “Mistake Number One”. Although it was cold, that did not stop several inebriated college kids from descending into the area–complete with beer, off-color T-shirts and signs(although to the contrary, they were clothed from the waist down–thank God), and traffic.

    The weather did not want to cooperate. Algae drifted in to the beach. Three hurricanes–Eduard, Fran, and Gustav–were sighted. Eduard would later hit the mid-Atlantic states and Gustav would become a tropical storm, but Fran headed straight toward us. The city was still recovering from Hurricane Opal, which had struck about five years earlier.

    I knew the vacation was cursed when we arrived at the hotel. The marquee’ announced this was “Florida’s Finest Family Motel” (I wanted to head home right there!) Its name was “The Sea Witch”, but for some reason we could not get the name right. It became “The Swamp Hag”, “The Swamp Witch” and “The Sea Hag”. All of them seemed appropriate. The elevator often jammed–I carried my luggage up five flights of stairs. We’d requested two rooms–they complied and gave us one on the second floor and one on the fifth floor. Some of Dad’s friends stayed in a hurricane-damaged room on the first floor–until they had to move because of allergy trouble.

    It was cold, but we were determined to either swim or sunbathe. The water was green and algae stuck to everybody’s skin. Finally, we gave up on swimming and decided to get dinner. What could go wrong there?

    On this vacation? Plenty.

    I ordered something called “Jamaican Jerk Chicken”. The spices were wonderful, and I savored every morsel. Finally, something about this trip was going right!

    Famous last words.

    I now know I am allergic to jerk seasoning. Barely able to keep down water, I lay on my hotel bed, shaking, burning with fever, and feeling my skin turn clammy. The one thought I could keep coherent was “Jamaican Jerk Chicken–how ironic.” I kept a cold washcloth on my forehead. My brother took pity and left me alone, although Dad’s friends couldn’t resist a little good-natured teasing.

    My health improved the next day. The water conditions did not. The temperature dropped and we were ready to wear pants to the beach. Finally we looked at each other. It was time to go home. As we left, beach staff ran a yellow flag up the mast–a sign the waters were getting rough. The trip home was the first thing that went right on the whole misadventure.

    posted by Becky on 10-4-2007 at 7:47 pm

84. My story’s probably not as bad as some here, but I sure thought it was pretty terrible.

    The night before the worst day ever, I found out that the guy I was kind of dating and who had been leading me on all summer had a girlfriend. So I was pretty miserable from that. It was also the night of my younger brother’s big high school homecoming game pep rally, so he had painted himself blue. He showered that night to get most of the paint off, but he told me that he was going to wake up at 5 the next morning to take another shower.

    I woke up the next morning at 6 to shower and get ready for school. My bedroom is next to the bathroom, so I could hear the water running, and assumed that my brother woke up late and was just finishing his shower. Ten minutes later he got out, and I went in. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t wake up all that late. He woke up at 5:30 and took a 40 minute shower! There was absolutely no hot water left, so I froze through my shower and got ready for school. When I saw my brother and commented on his leaving no hot water his reply was, “You should have gotten up earlier.” Yes, since YOU were the one to not get the paint off in the first place.

    My morning obviously did not get off to a good start. Add to the shower frustration the heartbreak from the night before. I was really upset about that guy. I drove up to school, parked my car, got out to go to class, and of course the first person I saw is the boy. He talked to me for a little while, which didn’t help things at all. I said I was late for class and left.

    My classes that day were not so bad, until my last one. My class was supposed to end at 12:50 and I had to be to work by 1, so I was pushing my luck to get out of there on time. My professor had the habit continuing to lecture until 12:55 so we went over nearly every day. I usually sat near the door so I could slip out at 12:50 to get to work on time. Not a problem right? Well, this day was the day before an exam, so I couldn’t leave because she was reviewing everything that would be on the test. And she didn’t start the review until 12:45. The rest of the class was lecture, which would also be on the exam. I had to stay until the class ended so I would know what to study. We didn’t get done until 12:55 (of course).

    Because my class ended so late and I was so worried about being late, I drove to work fighting back the tears. I was late for work, but my boss wasn’t there to chew me out over it, so I was okay. I went and got to work, and since I was in a slightly secluded place I had a little pity party and cried for a while.

    When I got home, everything else fell apart as well. I wanted to use our family’s laptop to work on something, but my brother and his friend were using it. The network wasn’t working, so I couldn’t access the stuff I needed from our other computer. I tried to email it to myself, and my email wouldn’t work. I finally gave up on it.

    I was going to a wedding reception that night, and though I had lived in the area for practically my whole life, I got lost. I forced myself to be happy when I congratulated the bride and groom, but I high-tailed it out of there soon after.

    This day was bad enough as it was, but there were two things that made it even worse.1- I had been sick all week and I was just barely starting to feel better when it all happened, and 2-my best friend who would understand and commiserate and let me complain to her was on vacation in Hawaii and wouldn’t be back until the next week. It was pretty much the worst day of my life.

    posted by Janel on 10-4-2007 at 9:12 pm

85. Why does Scott still talk to me? More puzzling, why does his wife? These are questions I often ponder. Scott is an old college buddy of mine. We’ve known each other for fifteen years, and we still stay in touch and get together as often as we can. And this despite the fact that I was partly responsible for utterly destroying his most prized possession, right in front of his eyes, on his wedding day.

    I was a groomsman at Scott and Susanne’s wedding. There were four of us, all in our early twenties, and all determined to take advantage of our friend’s good nature by pulling what seemed at the time to be a very mild prank. This was not to be a “Jackass”-style stunt. Indeed, it was banal in the extreme… at first.

    After the prerequisite wedding day chaos, the ceremony finally began. Cameras clicked and whirred; the singers warbled Whitney Houston tunes; the wedding party hit their marks; the flower girl and the ringbearer stopped throwing rose petals at each other; the fathers quit tugging angrily at their bowties. Soon, the wedding party and well-wishers were standing in the church’s glass atrium as we groomsmen slipped away into the scorching July sun. Sweating profusely in our black tuxes, we pulled several large Hefty bags out of a car trunk and quickly got to work.

    In front of the church doors sat the love of Scott’s life. I am not referring to his bride. He loves Susanne, no question, but his first love was a cherry red 1978 Pontiac Firebird. Scott, a gearhead right down to his chassis, had bought it when he was in high school with his own hard-earned money. All the weekends and summers spent flipping burgers had been worth it the first moment he’d slid into its faux-leather seat and heard the hoarse roar of its gas-guzzling engine. He and his dad had spent many hours together diagnosing the Firebird’s many problems and figuring out the hard way how to fix them on the cheap. The paint was still faded. It still made strange noises, even several minutes after the ignition had been switched off. It still left puddles of fluids each place it stopped. The t-tops still leaked, and the upholstery was still held together with duct tape. No matter. To Scott, each problem was a welcome challenge; an excuse to spend quality time with his beloved. In fact, what had really attracted him to Susanne in the first place was not so much that she had been impressed with the Firebird, but that she had accepted it as a member of his family. It was part of the total package; she couldn’t marry him without marrying his obsession. So when Scott had suggested that he and Susanne “drive off into the sunset” in the Firebird right after the reception, she had resignedly agreed. No matter that it wasn’t insured. It was only a few miles from the church to Scott’s house. Besides, the Firebird wouldn’t go much further than that without developing some major mechanical malfunction; Susanne’s car would get them to the airport tomorrow. The Firebird sat waiting, patiently passing the time by making new puddles.

    Meanwhile, the guests had been corralled into the cafeteria and the reception got underway. It was a pleasant but tame affair, and wound up by two in the afternoon. Scott’s father took the microphone and announced that the happy couple wished everyone to see them off as they drove away into their new life together. Dutifully, the guests filed out of the atrium and onto the shimmering asphalt.

    There, awaiting them, was an enormous, fluffy mound of toilet paper, crepe paper, newspaper, bows, signs, balloons, and assorted doodads that vaguely resembled a 1978 Pontiac Firebird. Scott had removed the t-tops for the occasion, so we had taken the opportunity to fill the interior to the brim with T.P. and leftover decorations. Scott and Susanne chuckled and posed beside the papery mess. As the papparazzi snapped away, Scott gallantly opened the passenger door for his bride. Susanne jumped a bit as a muffled POP! burst from a Chinese noisemaker that one of us (precisely who remains a subject of controversy) had rigged to the door. She smiled and wagged a finger at the laughing wedding party, then disappeared into a cloud of paper. Scott hopped into his side, tossing out paper products so he could see through the windshield. He started the engine (first try!) and the Firebird slowly pulled past a row of whirring videocameras.

    In an effort to avoid heat stroke, I had rushed off to change into my civvies. I arrived in the parking lot just in time to see the happy couple slowly pull away — trailed by a wispy but ominous cloud of smoke. “The car’s on fire!” screamed a frantic aunt. Sure enough, the noisemaker, a leftover from the last Fourth of July, had ignited a bit of toilet paper taped to the door. It was only smoldering at first, but several tuxedoed men rushed forward to beat out the small but growing flame. The car stopped suddenly, and the bride tumbled out amidst a flood of smoke and paper. As her father drug her away, the panicked groom threw the car back into drive. “I’ll blow it out!” he yelled, and began to drive the Firebird in a slow, wide arc. Naturally, this only fanned the flames. Soon, a fiery scrap of paper floated straight up into the air, and gently came to rest in the Charmin-filled back seat. I watched helplessly as the car, back seat aflame, coasted through the parking lot, followed by a running mob screaming advice and clutching at the burning paper.

    The blaze grew unabated, and soon Scott knew that he had to bail out. He rolled out of the car, T.J. Hooker-style, and landed at the feet of a shocked groomsman (who nonetheless still had the presence of mind to keep taking pictures). The groomsman reluctantly dropped his camera, helped a singed but unhurt Scott to his feet and rushed off to find an extinguisher. Meanwhile, the driverless car sailed on, straight towards the glass atrium. I squeezed my eyes shut. I heard footsteps, a yelp of pain, then a loud thud. I opened one eye, and saw the father of the groom nursing a blistered hand and the burning car sitting motionless a few yards away. Scott’s dad had run up to the Firebird, grabbed the melting steering wheel, and turned it hard enough so that instead of plowing into the church, it had smashed into the best man’s Toyota instead. A groomsman ran out of the atrium, holding aloft a fire extiguisher, and soon had the fire put out. I stared at the tableaux before me: sobbing bride, stunned guests, and embarrassed groomsmen exchanging guilty glances. The groom was on his knees, his hands on his head, his face horror-stricken. No one said a word.

    The whole thing had only taken a few seconds, but it had seemed like an hour. I felt something wet on my neck, and looked up as the sky, clear and hot moments ago, suddenly burst forth with a mocking torrent of rain. I followed the crowd back into the church. I looked back to see Scott, all alone, standing in the rain next to the wreck of his beloved Firebird, ashy black water pouring out of its doors and onto his rented shoes.

    Scott refused our sheepish offer to pay him for the damages. He remains friends with all of us. The Firebird still sits in his garage to this day, awaiting the time when he restores it to its former glory. So why DOES Scott talk to me? I suspect it’s because while perfect weddings come and go and are quickly forgotten, this one is forever, shall we say, burned into the memory.

    posted by Alan Inkenbrandt on 10-4-2007 at 9:36 pm

86. Ok, so this story isn’t really funny… but it certainly is worthy of Charlie Brown!

    My family and I recently went on a long (two weeks!) driving vacation. Half-way through, while we were in Yellowstone, my mom got a call that her mother had been hospitalized, so we rushed home. Probably 12 hours after the call that Grandma was in the hospital, our animal-caretaker called and said that our recently-adopted grey kitten was lying dead out the back door; it had been bitten by a rattlesnake. Dad told the caretaker to bury the cat, and we’d tell my little brother about it later. We got home at late at night and slept for a few hours before my parents headed to the hospital to care for Grandma. My parents switched shifts every few hours so the other one could come home and sleep. Meanwhile, my brother had been told that his favourite cat is dead, so I dealt with a hysterically-sobbing 9-year-old all day. The next morning dawned bright and early as my mom left to head back to the hospital. As I was just coming up the house after feeding our three horses, I noticed a funny looking rag laying out in the middle of the driveway. I pulled up next to it so I could throw it away, when I noticed that there is a flea collar on the neck: it was the dead kitten our dogs had dug up. Horrified, (and nearly puking, it smelled terrible!) I ordered my brother into his bedroom, grabbed the nearest shovel, scooped the dead kitten up, and headed out its previously occupied gravesite. I deepened the grave and added a ton more rocks and dirt as well as a wooden pallet over the top of the grave, hoping that would be enough to deter the dogs in the future. Then I headed back into the house to deal with my brother and feed the rest of our animals. Sure enough he was hysterical once again, but I was able to calm him down. The next day, Grandma died, and thankfully we had enough warning my brother and I could run down to the hospital to say goodbye. Now, flash forward two weeks. My older sister has flown out from Chicago to help go through Grandma’s apartment (a tremendous job… Grandma was the epitome of a packrat.). One morning, my dad and brother left early to move some furniture in the apartment around, I noticed another rag near the front porch. My heart stopped, and sure enough, there was the kitten again! I was so sick of seening the thing, that I layered up a couple trash bags and dumped the kitten in them. At this point, the corpse was two weeks old and our neighbors two miles away could probably have smelled it. My mom and sister said there was no way that we were putting the thing in the car to drive it the 2.5 miles to the trash dumpsters we use. So I hung in out the car window and rolled up the window all the way so I could just hold onto the trash bag handles. Anyway, everyone possible seemed to be driving on that one particular road that day, and we got a ton of funny stares at the flapping white trash bags hanging out our car window that were eminating a horrific stench. Finally, after what seemed like hours of driving (and my sister reciting parts of Stephen King’s Pet Cemetary certainly didn’t make the drive go any faster!), we arrived at the dumpsters and I hurled the cat, which was soon joined by some of my breakfast, into their depths. My mom, sister and I told my brother that we had taken the kitten to the vet to be cremated and spread out over the ocean. After we got home that night, I went out to the grave to see how the dogs managed to dig the kitten back up. Turns out, they had dug a perfect tunnel completely under the pallet to get to the kitten.

    It’s been a week now since all the drama concerning a single, pitiful, scrawning, dead kitten, and it is so pleasent to come up from my horses and not have to wonder if the oddly shaped rock or log is a dead cat!

    posted by Jacqui on 10-4-2007 at 11:40 pm

87. It was Christmas time, my favorite time of year and I was working for a law firm. The firm was open for a half day and closing the afternoon for our Christmas party. The only thing I had to accomplish that morning was delivering a subpoena to a police station a couple towns away. I wasn’t really familiar with where I was going and must have been doing over the speed limit because I got stopped by the police. While the officer was writing the ticket, at least I got to ask where the police station was so I could deliver the subpoena.
    When I got back to the office, we had our Christmas party and gift exchange, then headed home. The gift I received was a beautiful glass candle holder — or so I thought based on the box. When I opened the box at home, bits of broken glass fell all over my carpet. Whatever it was had completely shattered. I began picking up the pieces and my phone rang. As I ran to the phone, I stepped on a shard on glass that embedded itself into the sole of my foot.
    I answered the phone and it was my mother, who had been trying to reach me all day at work — to tell me that my grandma had died the night before.
    Definitely a day for the record books.

    posted by Kimberly Ciesiolka on 10-5-2007 at 6:58 am

88. My wonderful day starts 10/2/07 when arriving back home I can’t get my deisel engine Benz to shut off. I mean I’m holding the keys in my hand outside the car and it still runs. I use the manual shut-off under the hood, so ok now its off. I go upstairs and we decided to eat a frozen pizza. While the oven is preheating the electricity goes off. Seesome genius across the road decided to cut limbs over power lines and the limb is on fire. I decise to go to McDonalds and get pulled over by a gwinnett police officer. I had left my wallet at home but I remember my DL#. I go on my way to McDonalds and discover that the power is out there too and I wait about 15 minutes and luckily it comes back on. I order a #10 value meal for my daughter, 3 double cheese burgers and 2 large fries. I pay and drive home. They forgot one of the fries. I go back, they want a receipt which I don’t have. I pay again. I go home and eat. Two hours later we plan to go to the library, I have a flat tire. I state there will be no more trips that day. I can take a hint!

    posted by John Brown on 10-5-2007 at 7:53 am

89. BUREAUCRACY

    (A Working Title)

    We are a recently married pair of Seniors; We married in my homeland of Scotland, United Kingdom – no problem. But the difficulties arose once we arrived in California.
    We thought it would be a good idea to begin the process of changing my wife’s name to mine. Monday, 8.15am, Walnut Creek Social Services office. “Oooops, they don’t open till 9.00am, well, that’s OK, we should have checked, first.” Finally, we reach the “Reception” window. Turns out, my Scottish Marriage Certificate and British passport are fine, but my American wife’s passport is still at her home, but is essential (Who would have expected her to need it any more in USA?) “You can have an appointment next month or you can come back with the passport and stand in that line again.”. (Sigh!)
    My wife says: “Now the day is shot why don’t you get a driving license, so you can drive our car? You only need take your British license to the Department of Motor Vehicles.” The line stretched along two sides of the office, there WERE half-a-dozen chairs but reserved for the disabled. Of course, only a couple of windows were in use, but after a long wait, we reached a clerk. He was very helpful and before long, I was being photographed and was doing the written test, but the license can’t be completed till I get a Social Security number. While I waited for my test to be marked, my wife tried to have her name changed on her license. Simple? Oh, no! “DMV needs a California Marriage Certificate, the British one is no use – go to City Hall”
    At City Hall, “City Hall does not provide that Certificate, you need to go to Martinez.”
    Next day in Martinez, we are told, “We do not provide such a copy – your British Certificate is all you need and all you can get. I don’t know what DMV are doing, but you can give them my name if they will not believe you.
    Back in Walnut Creek, we decide to have another try at Social Security. Of course, it takes about an hour to reach the Reception window, where we are told that they will give me a letter to take to DMV and my wife’s name will be changed on the Social Services records. “Just have a seat and your name will be called.” After about another hour a window opened and people began to be dealt with. When our turn came, the clerk announced that the Marriage Certificate, which was enough for all occasions in United Kingdom, is of no use in California, because it does not have embossing.
    “However, if you can get any of these documents changed, we would accept the Certificate and change our records:-
    Driver’s license Marriage or divorce record Military records
    Employer ID card Adoption record Insurance policy
    School ID card.” Passport Health insurance card

    “Next!”
    “Letter? What letter?”
    Later, my son in Scotland phoned the Registrar who married us, and she said that the paper had an unforgeable watermark, which proved the authenticity of the document, so we will go back later and try again.
    Monday, 6 October. The Callander Registrar e-mailed me to explain that in Scotland, the watermark is the guarantee of authenticity, so we decided to beard the Social Security ogre with the new ‘evidence’. After two and a half hours, we reached the window and this new clerk processed Erica’s name-change without a moment’s hesitation and without recourse to the e-mail. The new card should come within two weeks. Two wasted weeks due to a clerk’s officiousness. They will send a letter to the Department of Motor Vehicles saying that I have applied for a social security number.
    Tuesday 7 October. Buoyed up with this success, we next went to Erica’s bank, got a pleasant young man (they’re ALL young, now!) plus an ultra-smiling Japanese lady trainee. Everything went well, till he read through the marriage certificate a couple of times and announced that nowhere did the certificate actually state that Erica’s name would now be Firth. “Sorry, can’t change it till you get your Social Security card in your new name – come back when you get it!”
    Soon, we will take our picnic hamper and try the DMV! Again! Of course, they will not permit food or drink in Social Security, although a two and a half hour wait appears to be the norm. I have since sent a letter to the Manager of the Social Security office suggesting he tell his staff in case another Scottish wedding couple arrive full of hope. I should also have suggested he buy another dozen chairs as what is there is inadequate to seat the paying clients.
    From now on, we plan to ask any clerk delaying us “Should we marry for a third time? Is once in a Register Office and once in church not enough, so we need to marry in California too?”
    9 October. We got up early and went to DMV before it opened to avoid the crowds – Ha! Instead of a great long line inside the building, there was an equally long line outside!
    After the doors opened we all moved inside and we found ourselves at roughly the same distance from the head of the line as before, but there seemed to be fewer empty windows than last time and we did not have to wait quite so long. The clerk who dealt with us barely glanced at our Scottish Marriage certificate and before we knew it, we were outside with all our business completed. Ironically, the clerk who previously refused to accept the certificate was running the camera and when he took Erica’s photo for her new license, remembered us, but Erica did not mention the certificate to him and I was not beside her at the time or I would have. All I need do now for the driving license is sit a driving test – but I better get accustomed to driving an automatic car and get a couple of lessons from an instructor. No rush, I like having my own driver.
    It is infuriating to think that if we had met those second clerks the first visits, how much trouble it would have saved us.
    10 October. On our flight Glasgow – San Francisco, I felt unwell and when we reached Walnut Creek and when I recovered, I realized I had lost my flight itinerary for the return flight. Thinking all I needed to do was call up British Airways online and print out a new copy, I went online, but could not get it from BA as I did not know my booking reference. They tried looking up the flight from San Francisco on 16th November, but could not find me.
    I tried going to my ‘old mail’ but as I am away from home, there are only a few items there. My son went to my house and looked in my laptop but found nothing.
    After many phone calls, and listening to lots of ‘hold the line’ music, one clerk suggested using the reference against my Visa payment record and this worked. It turns out my flight was for 28th November, not 16th. How did this happen? I have no idea, but both Erica and I had made appointments in UK for the days immediately after the 16th and we had to hunt around for ways to contact the infirmary and the dentist. Also, I brought only enough medications to last until the 16th (but I have a small surplus, so only one week is short)
    Once my return flight was fixed, we could book Erica’s flight to accompany me. This morning, I called up the BA web-site to see why we received no confirmation of the booking – apparently we never requested confirmation, but I have asked for it now.
    While there, I decided to check that we had been given adjoining seats, but the site cannot find my booking! I tried using both USA and UK as “home” – neither has heard of me. Panic!
    We phoned BA and they found my booking, but it is very disconcerting to be ‘lost’ once again.
    When we were coming to USA, I was conscious of the short time between flights for getting from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1 in Heathrow, so I tried to change my booking to an earlier flight from Glasgow, but BA would not permit this. However, we arrived at Glasgow airport so early that they were unable to check us in, as they still were dealing with earlier flights, but the attendant suggested that we go to the ticket office and see if we could get on that earlier flight. We did this and got on the earlier flight – and it was just as well we did, because all the wheelchairs in Heathrow were in use for two planes from India, where all the passengers always demand wheelchairs to save walking and we barely managed to get to the gate in time.
    On looking back, I am now convinced that British Airways lost my return (electronic) ticket when that change was made at Glasgow and when I was finally able to prove that I had paid for the return ticket, they fitted me into an available flight, which happened to be two weeks later than my planned trip.
    12 October. We returned to the bank and sure enough, they accepted the new Social Security card and they changed Erica’s name on her account. At the same time, she asked for new checks with her new name. She ordered a pattern with “antique’ appearance and having a large, decorative initial in one corner.
    A few days later, six books of checks arrived – with a large decorative “F” for ‘Firth’ in the corner, all right, but unfortunately, the checks were printed with her OLD name of Wong. We returned to the bank and returned the checks and ordered new ones in the name of Firth. When we returned home, though, I found one of the Wong checkbooks on the chest of drawers.
    30 October. Yesterday, we took Erica’s check from her pension provider to the bank to deposit it, but as the check was made out to Erica Wong, the teller demurred, asking to see our marriage certificate. Thinking “Here we go again!” I mentioned that the official who first refused to change the name had taken a photocopy, so he was called but as he pointed out, the certificate did not specifically state that her name would now be “Firth”, so it was of no use. Pointing out that the account name was “Wong” last week did not help much, either, but when a supervisor was consulted, he finally agreed to accept it provided Erica signed it with her two names – then he realized that the check was post-dated till 1 November, so we were sent away till then. I await the final outcome with interest.
    10 November. When we took the “Wong” check to the bank, it was accepted after a little flurry of consultations.
    Last week, I took $200 out of my U.K. account using the cash machine outside the bank and deposited it into Erica’s account by way of an envelope and the same cash machine. A couple of days later, the online account showed an item “Empty Envelope in ATM – deduct $200”. Of course, we rushed to the bank and staked our claim to a banker, who spent the next 30 minutes or so on the phone. Her side of the conversation seemed to comprise mainly “Oh?” “I see.”, and a very resigned final “I’ll tell them.”. Of course, all this activity attracted the attention of what we were beginning to regard as our personal banker and he came over to check that we were being dealt with. Our phoning lady told us that the claim would be investigated, but she thought it unlikely that we would be reimbursed, as it is not unknown for people to make false claims of this nature.
    Yesterday, I noticed that the online account showed “Bank originated credit – $200” and today a letter arrived saying, “Your account was inadvertently charged for $200 in error. As a result, we have credited the full amount your account. Please accept our apology for any inconvenience this may have caused you.”
    When we next visited the bank, (we seem to have been going almost daily, for one reason or another) the banker hastened over to check that we had been reimbursed. I bet other customers think we must have really LARGE accounts with Wells Fargo to get such constant attention!
    17 November. On Saturday, a letter from Wells Fargo arrived in the mailbox, addressed to a Spanish-sounding name, but to our address, so on Monday, we took it to the bank (yes, another visit!) and when I handed the unopened letter to a banker, she took one look at it and handed it to the lady who had dealt with our claim. She, in turn opened the envelope, read the letter and handed it to me. It was another letter of apology, but, as it turned out, addressed to that banker! Presumably, whomever she had spoken to in Arizona, or wherever it was had got client and official mixed up – it sure fills you with confidence, don’t it?
    12 December, Scotland. Before we left USA, we spoke to our banker and we were assured that if the pension check arrived with the name unchanged, Erica’s son could deposit for her, but of course, when the check arrived, it was still in the old name and when he tried to deposit it, it was refused. Erica phoned, and the banker she spoke to was adamant that we would need to go there and deposit it in person. Of course, there are many USA bills, which had to be paid, and we were relying on that check to prevent checks bouncing, so Erica, realizing that the banker would not budge, asked to speak to the branch manager. Immediately, the banker said that she would ensure that the check would be accepted if Eric brought it back in: next day the payment reappeared in the online statement. It is interesting to see that not only did the mention of the manager get immediate results, but also the check was credited at the date of the original deposit and the item about its refusal disappeared.
    Because Erica’s journeys have always started in USA and mine in UK, our flight tickets have been out of synch and a one-way ticket costs almost double a return ticket. Consequently, once the mix-up about my flight was cleared up, we booked Erica’s flight to accompany me on 28th November. On the flight, as we were about to board the plane in London for Glasgow, we were pulled aside – apparently, San Francisco British Airways had neglected to charge my VISA card for her ticket! We were reluctantly allowed to board the plane and BA said they would contact San Francisco to have them debit my card, but so far, nothing has changed.
    This may be the ideal time to get our flights synchronized – we can get a British passport for Erica and book two seats in the Firth name and let the Wong return fade away. Who knows, they may never charge for that flight! Hold the presses! It appears she may be required to give up her US passport in order to re-activate her British one and that is not her wish! Turns out getting married was the easiest part!
    When I tried to get a driver’s licence, after I had passed the written test, the clerk at Dept of Motor Vehicles told me I’d need to get a social security number before I could go further.  We went to the dept of Social Security to change Erica’s name to Firth and I asked to get a S/S number at the same time.  You may remember, that was when the clerk told us the Scottish marriage licence was not valid in California and it was only later that I realised nothing more was done about my number.
    This week, we decided to have another attempt at getting me a Social Security number, because some stores were demanding a driving licence or social security number before accepting payment by VISA.  We went to the social security office and I was dealt with before Erica could even return from parking the car.  (last time, we waited 2 hours to speak to reception and a further 2 hours to be dealt with – and to be wrongly refused.) Anyway, the clerk told us I can’t get a S/S number unless I am authorised to work here or I become a permanent resident.  However, she told us that I should get a Taxpayer ID from the Inland Revenue Service.
    We drove to the IRS office and the clerk there explained that I will not get a Taxpayer ID until I fill the tax form next April.  I have downloaded the IRS Tax Guide – all 139 pages and I may even study it at some time.

    posted by Stan D Firth on 10-5-2007 at 8:08 am

90. I decided at the age of 47 that I wanted to go back to school to work on my Ph.D. Knowing that I would be much older than most of the other students, I decided to have a few things done to improve my appearance and help me feel better about myself. The day before classes started I had a small spot removed from my face and had my hair highlighted. Much to my surprise and horror, I wound up being allergic to the bandage the doctor used to cover the spot. My face blew up like a balloon, became red and itchy and I looked like the Phantom of the Opera. The young girl who highlighted my hair must have thought I was living in L.A. instead of being a teacher from central Illinois because she striped my hair like a zebra. Each strip was about an inch and a half wide and alternated bleached blond and black. Knowing that I knew I looked utterly ridiculous but had to go to class anyway. As I walked in, I realized that everyone in the class already knew each other. Some of them had driven together, some worked together, and some had taken other classes together. I felt like an outsider – an outsider with a Phantom face and zebra hair. My only hope was to make a connection with someone and try to find someone I could be friends with immediately. One of the guys in the class had on a Chicago Cubs t-shirt. I love the Cubs and am an avid fan. This was going to be my in – the way to make a connection with a classmate. I happened to have on my hightop Converse tennis shoes with ‘Chicago Cubs’ embroidered on one side and ‘Go Cubbies’ embroidered on the other. I put my feet out in the aisle for him to see. I didn’t want to say anything and was trying to be subtle while still making my point that we were both Cubs fans. I noticed that he looked at my feet several times throughout class; I had made my point. Walking back to my car after class I wanted to see which shoe was visible to him. I checked the side of my Converse only to see the side of my shoe covered in dog crap. No wonder he kept looking at my shoe! I am no quitter and have continued working on my degree, but I can only hope I don’t run into anyone I had class with that day.

    posted by Kathy A. on 10-5-2007 at 2:19 pm

91. Well, I used to work at a University located in Central NY. My husband and I lived close to campus, and I used to walk to the athletic complex and take a shuttle bus to work. The walk was about two blocks, along a major thoroughfare. One morning, I left for work (after my husband) and was almost at the bus stop, when a car pulled up alongside me. It seems that the back of my dress was tucked into my pantyhose. The kicker? It was a husband and wife couple in the car, and the wife had to persuade the husband to stop to let me know what was going on.

    Or the time when my boyfriend was returning from a month-long trip to Europe and his mother paid for and booked the tickets for me to fly to Washington, DC from our hometown to meet his plane. Unfortunately, we flew into different DC area airports and didn’t meet up until a layover on the way home. It took me quite a while on the payphone to figure this one out.

    posted by Michele on 10-5-2007 at 5:51 pm

92. So it was friday. First class of the day was History. I got a C on a test because i didn’t read. Second class, english in the chemistry room. It smelled like rotten eggs and we had a three page test on Macbeth. In the rotten egg room. Lunch: didn’t have food, didn’t have money, was supposed to work on a song for the school play, but Maggie, who was supposed tow rite it with me, just wouldn’t, so we never got it done. their class, Chemistry: didn’t ahve my lab, my friend was absent and the people in my class are the biggest idiots alive. last block, yoga: ten mintue run, and then we ahd to do circuit, which means go around and jsut lift weights to awful music for an hour. Allthis on my period with a headache. After school: 4 hour rehearsal. During one of the breaks, i was running, and slipped and landed on my head, giving me a worse headache and knocking the wind out of me. then, while tryin gto walk up the stairs, my friend pulled my hand and made me slip again, hurting my already screwed up knees. Then, the director told me to find a harmony with maggie, who wouldnt help, and I couldnt do it. it was infuriating. then, maggie the notorious boy one, who recently broke up wiht her boyfriend, offhandedly said “it sucks to be single”, this to me who has had one boyfriend which ended very badly. goddamnit. then I went to my friend’s house where my other maggie was being egotistical and annoying and everyone was yelling when i have a headache and they wouldnt shut up. then my parents told me they were putting my dog to sleep next week.

    the end.
    (hooray)

    posted by Kayla v. on 10-5-2007 at 7:53 pm

93. My most “Charlie Brown” moment happened about 8-9 years ago when I was still dating. I had broken up with a guy that I had dated for a really long time, and everyone thought they should help me out by hooking me up with guys that they knew. One lady was someone that I voluteered with at the Air National Guard Family Support center. She called this guy, and had me talk to him on the phone, and he seemed ok. I gave him my number and we talked a couple more times before we decided to go out and meet.

    You know, during our conversations, he did a great job of getting info out of me about me, and avoiding my return questions. That should have been a clue for what was to come.

    The man showed up an hour and a half late for our date. Of course this is because he was 45 and I was 26, and he had problems dropping of his 156 year old son at his ex-wife’s house. Information that he did not divulge in earlier conversations. I decided to try to give the guy a chance even though he was so much older.

    He asked me if I minded that He picked out a place for us to go. I said I did not mind because I was sure it would be a nice place. He picked out Furr’s cafeteria; which in and of itself was not a “horrible” place. My true problem with it came when half way through dinner he asked me to pay for half of dinner because he didnt have enough money. I should have excused myself for the restroom, called someone on the pay phone and got out of dodge; but, I kept thinking I needed to try to tough it and give him a chance. I paid half, and we left headed in a direction from home that I was unfamiliar with.

    His next plan was to take in “Shakespear in the park” at an outdoor ampitheater north of the city. We got there, and he asked me to find out how much the tickets were, because he did not know if he had enough money. Disgusted, I got out of his car and walked 3 city blocks to the ticket office to find out the cost. I hiked back to his car to tell him, and when I opened the door, there he was sitting, naked and reclined in the driver’s seat! I screamed, slammed the door and took off walking, trying to find a cop or a pay phone. He jumped into his pants, and drove after me and rolled down the window telling me to “stop being ridiculous” and get in the car. I was thinking he was a serial rapist, and who did he think I was? I was SO preppy, and goodie goodie looking (according to friends) that I was shocked into silence. Finally, I did give in to getting in his car, only because he did not have electric locks, and I couldnt find a phone or a cop anywhere. I demanded that he take me home, and he kept telling me he was just doing what he was feeling, and why was I so uptight about it. When he pulled up to my house, I literally jumped out of his car and ran into the house.

    He phoned later and asked if I was interested in another date. I told him to lose my number.

    posted by Jodie Foster on 10-6-2007 at 6:44 pm

94. I could also tell you about the year I was married. My Mom cancelled out a week before the wedding making me the only of 8 daughters whose wedding she did not attend; my youngest sister insisted on being my MOH or SHE wouldnt come, she was fighting with her husband who was drunk all the time and got lost trying to find his way back to the hotel. The wedding coodinator at the hotel left town, and did not leave our plans with anyone. They lost our limo reservations, gave us a smoking room when I have asthma; none of my sisters showed for a bachelorette party for me, someone took some of our wedding gifts, we had to rush out of the chapel because they had overbooked the day we had reserved, and the photographer not only did not know how to take pictures, he was drooling over one of my sisters and we could hardly keep his attention.

    posted by jodie foster on 10-6-2007 at 6:52 pm

95. I was working as a field engineer for a computer repair company in the Carolinas when I got a call in the mountains between North Carolina and Tennessee. It was a late call, so I did not arrive until after 6pm. The office manager was very perturbed that she had to stay late. She refused to let me into the computer room until she had finished something else, so I did not get to begin my work until about 7pm.

    I finally finished up my work at about 10pm and still had to drive home to Charlotte, about a 3 hour drive, to drop off the van and pick up my car. Halfway home, I took a wrong turn and ended up on a small county road. While trying to turn the van around, I backed it into a ditch. I was a wit’s end when I spotted a small house off the road with the lights on. I went up to the door and explained to the young lady what had happened. She told me that her father-in-law had a tow truck. We called him, he helped tow me out of the ditch and I found my way back to the highway.

    Unfortunately, I had lost my temper when I first got on the road and gave the gear shift a good slam. Halfway up a hill, I realized that the gear shift had come loose from its socket and I was halfway between second and third gear. I was able to coast into a large parking lot and call my boss on my cell phone. I explained what had happened and he walked me through taking the cover off of the gear shift and putting it back together. Again, I was on my way back home.

    The piece de resistance was yet to come. I should have known better, but I just had to stop at that all-night diner when I only had about a half an hour to go. I just HAD to use the ladies room. As luck would have it, just as I flushed the toiled, I dropped my beeper in the toilet. I delicately fished it out and headed to the home stretch. My boss came out very quietly and helped took my equipment out of the van as I got in my car. He was convinced that I would quit while I was convinced that one bad trip would not force me out of a perfectly good job.

    posted by Pam Rogers on 10-7-2007 at 6:49 pm

96. I went out on a date with a guy. Nice date, cute guy and he was English to boot (I have always had a weakness for guys from the UK).

    He calls after our date to tell me what a great time he had. We talk on the phone subsequently, things are progressing well. We schedule to meet again in a few days later, Saturday, for dinner. He’ll pick me up, he says. ‘kay. I’m a happy gal.

    Then Saturday comes. The day goes along with not a call from him. I wait, deluding myself by thinking that maybe he’ll call later. Well maybe later… Ok, then, perhaps right before dinner, to tell me he’s on his way.

    Not. Nothing. I take myself out to dinner and mentally cross him off the list.

    The next day I get a call. He was at a monastery, he claims, visiting a friend and got stuck there. This was definitely original, and although I wanted to assume that if he was lying he would have come up with something more realistic, I was still skeptical. He begged for my forgiveness and asked what he had to do to be able to see me again. I said “earn back my trust”.

    So he called me diligently each day for the next week, solicitous, sweet and charming. Finally I agreed to go out with him again. We schedule the night and…

    Same thing. I got stood up again. I’m not sure which feeling was more dominant that evening: confusion or stupidity…

    posted by Monica Hamburg on 10-7-2007 at 8:19 pm

97. I went into my first year of highschool thinking to myself, “Sure, the school kind of looks like a prison, but it shouldn’t be too bad.” First off, my public high school was and, if i’m correct, still is the largest in the state. It houses all the best reagents for a humiliating story–tucked in shirts, very large l.l. bean backpacks, and of course 14-18 yr. old boys and girls.

    I rode the bus on my first day of highschool. I didn’t really mind. I recognized a couple of kids, but really I enjoyed the time. It gave me an opportunity to plan for my classes, double check to make sure I had enough school gear in my backpack (pens, paper, etc.). I got to school, took in the overwhelming size of the campus, and then attempted to find where my first class was located. Long story short, I mixed up the halls (A,B,C,D,E), and couldn’t find the stairs to reach the third floor. I realized my mistake and quickly headed toward the right hall, running through the courtyard. Keep in mind, I was wearing a pair of Birkenstock clogs (hey, it was 1999) with no socks. I wasn’t looking down, and ended up sticking my foot in a tiny 6-7inch diameter hold in the ground that was filled with water from the previous night’s rainfall. I stumbled into class, history I think it was, late, and making a squishing sound every other step. Pretty soon the water in the sandal formed with whatever that stuff is on the inside and made a nice silky gel in between my toes for the rest of the day.

    Then, lunch came. Because of fate’s own humor, none of my friends from middle school were in my lunch period. I felt risky and ordered some natchos, only to spill said natchos on my lap ten minutes later, and with no one near me that I could even lament to, saying, “Can you believe that?”

    I went to the bathroom and cleaned my pants, headed back to class. Apparently I was late because of doing so, and the teacher made sure I was aware of that, addressing me in front of the whole class, saying, “We return from lunch at 12:30, no later, even if you do have an accident.” The kids in the class then looked at my wet crotch and snickered. I tried explaining about the natchos, how the cheese is hard to get out of denim without club soda, but it was no use, so I took my seat.

    That afternoon, between classes, I noticed a cute young girl I had never seen before. I assumed she was also a freshman. I guess she held the same overall awkward demeanor. I went up to her, and smiling and being courteous, said, “Hey, how’s it going?” She replied, “What’s with your pants? Gross.” I’ll let you guess what she presupposed the wet mark on my pants was. Hmm…what a lovely day so far.

    At the end of the day I went and talked with the coach for the wrestling team because I intended on trying out for the team later that year. Never let yourself or your children do the sport, it’s horribly depressing and in the middle of winter. He was a short, statue of a man with shrivled ears. He ended up saying I could play if I wanted but I needed to gain at least fifty pounds of muscle, seeing as I was 5′11″ and 125 pounds. “You’re a little gangly, son,” I believe were his words. Still am, it seems.

    At the time, all of these incidents seemed very devistatingat the time. But, in retrospect, I probably didn’t miss much from being late to my first class, just the role call. The stain came out of the jeans. The girl turned out being mean all the time, not just then, so talking to her was a doomed choice anyways. And I ended up quiting wrestling and choosing running instead, seeing how the coach’s only encouraging remarks during practice were, “Nice running, there.” And I guess like any Schulz story, there were never any drastic deaths or tragic happenings, just lovely little humiliating moments that may teach us something, but really just help us to look at the absurdity in life sometimes.

    posted by Matthew B. on 10-8-2007 at 8:26 pm

98. I consider myself to be an above-average poker player; with my small-stakes wins consistently covering my losses. IN all of my play, I’ll never be able to forget my first live session.

    Seven years ago, it all began at the Excalibur in Las Vegas. I bought in for $100 – an absolute fortune for the poor grad student that I was. I sat for 3 hours without getting a hand worth playing. The only thing keeping me there was the sideshow of characters I’ll try to describe:

    On my right were 3 brothers from Massachusetts who were in town for their annual family get-together. They were playing for fun more that profit, which was part of my downfall. They couldn’t be bluffed, and would never fold. They had me beaten psychologically, and as a result, my stack dwindled.

    On my left was a 300 pound, noticeably drunk gorilla with multiple facial piercings, several neck tattoos, a shaven head, and a blue goatee that was reportedly due to his having “carnal knowledge” of the cartoon character Smurfette. As the three brothers continued to “buy” him no less than 16 free drinks, he donated more than $300 to the pot without taking a single hand.

    As Bluebeard grew more irate with his drunken luck, he revealed that he was actually in town for the Ultimate Fighting Championship the night before.

    As a competitor.

    Who was beaten.

    Badly.

    He compounded his frustration in losing by propositioning every female passerby in an all-metaphors-barred tirade. After security intervened for the third time, I realized that as a 125 pound engineering student I had not chosen the best seat.

    Down to my last $24, I decided that I needed to make a financial stand and a physical retreat. I was dealt K-8 of clubs, and raised with my speculative hand. Bluebeard called without looking at his cards, and he was ridiculed by the 3 brothers. Furious, he explained that he was going to play this hand blind, and that if he lost again, he’d simply flip the table upside down.

    The flop came with a single king, giving me the top pair. I bet to protect my hand from someone drawing an ace. Bluebeard RAISED me, still playing blind, just to spite the brothers. This of course only fueled their laughter, and in turn – his adrenaline.

    The next card was an 8, giving me 2 pair, and the probable best hand. I bet again, this time hoping Bluebeard would get the message, and back down willingly. He (of course) reraised me, and restated his mission: win a hand or start breaking people.

    The final card came down as another king, giving me a full house (KKK88) and the highest possible hand. I knew I would win, and decided to bet hoping that Bluebeard would fold, or that security would do their job. Bluebeard, of course, called with a drunken glare in my direction.

    I rolled my cards over in the most nonthreatening way I could: “Sorry man, but I have kings full. That’s the nuts.” He flipped his unseen cards as he stood up, turned to me, and passed out in my lap, taking me, my chair, and a waitress to the floor.

    King 8. Split pot.

    posted by Chris Garman on 10-9-2007 at 11:29 am

99. This reminds me of my hell-month house-sitting. My sister and her husband had asked me to house-sit their recently renovated (Take note) house, while they take a much deserved holiday to Florida for the December holidays.
    This was not a problem for me – their house was close to my current contract and my brother-in-law’s brother was going to house-sit from the 22′nd until they came back on the 2′nd of January. That way I could enjoy holiday rush-hour and take a week off from work for some rest myself.
    The month started out ok. The house was recently renovated, from the foundations up in some places, so everything had that brand new feeling. It was located in a very high-class neighbourhood on a hill, with security fencing, alarm and a incredible view of the city. Their four dogs – two spaniels, a gay labrador (yes, gay) and a deaf, hyperactive dalmation – were behaving themselves. I had a fully stocked kitchen and bar, unlimited net access from their home-office, the keys to their Land-Rover, etc. Perfection. What could go wrong?
    Two weeks in everything went to hell.
    I should mention that this happened in Johannesburg, South Africa. This is important because December is high-summer and in Johannesburg is known for its fierce thundershowers.
    So one afternoon, just before I left for home, we had a cloud-break. A massive storm, with torrents of rain, lightning, high winds. Low lying roads were flooded, police closed some bridges, trees were down.
    When I finally got home, I walked into chaos. The electric gate had shorted out. The newly ‘renovated’ sections of the house was leaking where it joined the original parts of the house. The power was out. The dogs had had a fight, the one spaniel needed to be taken to the vet.
    While taking the dog to the vet in the Landy I was caught in a speed trap and almost arrested. Then when I came home again I found out that the alarm system had completely gone haywire. It turns out that the hill was a known lightning attractor, and that the lightning had hit the alarm, the electric fencing and gate, and the office phone system. The siren would not shut down, partly because of the lightning and partly because the control box was located in a cupboard at one of the new joins, so had been flooded. The alarm company promised me a technician as soon as possible, but seeing as the storm had taken out systems across the entire city, they could not tell me when.
    I spent the next few hours arranging for repairs on the phones, gate motor, fencing and also cleaning up the mess in the house. All phone calls were made outside the house, because the alarm could not be shut down and I could not find any cables to cut for the siren. The only one who stayed in the house was the dalmatian.
    The technician finally arrived 11 that night (At least someone had a worse day than me). He was able to shut down the alarm, but told me that they would only be able to repair it in January. He did arrange for a hourly security patrol to swing by the house. It turned out that there had been a spate of break-ins and robberies in the area. The thieves were supposed to be very tooled up and professional, and had shot at police a few nights before – with assault rifles.
    Just after he left the power went out and it started raining again.
    The next week had record rain storms. That is when it turned out that the windows in the new section of the house all leaked around the edges. By then I had become expert at the bucket brigade. The entire house was filled with pots and pans. Every day showed a new leak somewhere. The spaniel’s wound got infected and he had to be taken to the vet again. Then the dalmatian ran through a glass door – I think he was trying to get away from the labrador. I had to take the landrover to a cleaning service to clean out the blood in the back. I saw the vet so often that I later ended up dating his receptionist.
    Finally the 21’st arrived. The next day Jacques, my brother-in-law’s younger brother would take over and I could take off for some well deserved rest at a friends gamefarm near the Kruger Park.
    That night the little bastard cheerily phoned me to inform me that he was on holiday in the Cape and would I be ever so kind as to keep an eye on the place until my sister came back. ‘I owe you one’.
    2′nd of January finally arrived. I had spent my holiday babysitting two sick dogs in a house that leaked like a sieve, through intermittent power failures. The neighbors were robbed the one night. The place was like a ghost town, everyone had left for the holidays.
    That morning my sister and her husband arrived home.
    ‘Hi Paul. What are you doing here? Where’s Jacques?’
    ‘Why does Basia and Miscka both have stitches?’
    ‘Why are there buckets everywhere?’
    ‘Is the alarm out? ‘I’ll just phone the alarm company… What do you mean the phones are out?’
    By the time I left my sister was tears and my brother-in-law was on his cellphone to his brother. I just took my bags and walked out looking forward to a quiet time at the office.
    They never asked me to do anything again.

    posted by Paul Grove on 10-10-2007 at 7:03 am

100. I crapped in my new underpants.

     posted by skeetin on 10-12-2007 at 2:13 pm

101. Hi Guys, you want a Charlie Brown moment? Boy do I have one! In fact, I have enough to fill a weekly column for the next zillion years! Here’s one…

     Last year, on our vacation, we were on our way from Mumbai, India, to Bangalore. The Rain Gods of Mumbai decided to torture us by shedding all the water supply they had, onto Mumbai in one day! We were informed that our flight was on time, but when we reached the airport, we gathered it was a mean trick played by the airline authorities to torture the passengers. Our flight was delayed indefinitely and there was no indication of the probable time of departure. My brother-in-law who had accompanied us to the airport waited for a couple of hours and then reluctantly left for work.

     My younger daughter was getting hungry and we went on our way looking for the food court after checking in our baggage. A very helpful airline staff member directed us to a lounge upstairs where we would find some good food. Upstairs was not just upstairs. It meant hauling up our luggage, going through a maze of hallways and cowering before security guards questioning our intentions. We finally made our way to the Jet airways lounge and got ourselves microscopic samosas for half our fortune. We didn’t find announcements for any other airline on the ubiquitous screens which kept flashing only information about Jet airways schedules. We quickly ate our samosas and my older daughter and I decided to go downstairs to check on our status of our flight. We go down only to be shocked by the announcement that our flight was boarding. We rushed upstairs all the way through the mazes and the guards, screamed at my husband and my daughter to run downstairs, grabbed our bags and rushed back down. Since we had checked in, the airline staff had been frantically looking for us. Some guy yelled, “Where were you guys? We were looking all over the place for you!” We weren’t even given a chance to explain. They grabbed us and dumped us unceremoniously onto a bus and took us to the aircraft which was getting ready to leave without us. We were literally thrown into the plane and slowly made our way to our seats. We were given cold glares by the other passengers and were wondering why they all seemed so hostile. The stewardess, with the voice of a harassed mother of a 2 year old asked “Where were you?” Very truthfully, (which afterwards I realized was a mistake) I said, “Eating samosas.” She looked at us with disbelief and literally pushed us towards our seats, which were, by the way, torn and stained. Maybe the “friendly passengers” had something to do with it? We will never know. We gingerly sat on the seats, literally on the edge of the seats and prayed for a miracle which would teleport us to our destination without the anti-social looks from anyone. It turned out that the aircraft couldn’t leave without us and they were looking for us for the past 10 minutes. The engine had been turned off and everyone was sweating buckets of perspiration while we were enjoying our samosas. No wonder the 10 minutes seemed like 10 aeons for the rest of the friendly folks!

     Now that the errant passengers had arrived, everyone settled in their seats and got ready for take off. The rain hadn’t yet relented and many of the runways had been closed. The engines started, the air-conditioning was back on and everyone relaxed. It was just a delay of 10 minutes and the good folks in the plane got into a forgiving mood. The people next to us even ventured a slight nod at us when no one else was looking.

     Just as things were returning to normal, a voice boomed into the cabin, “Hello everybody, this is your captain. We apologize for the unnecessary delay caused by some thoughtless passengers. We attempted a take off, but visibility is poor and looks like we won’t be able to move for sometime now. I request you all to collect your bags and prepare to deplane. We will make another attempt as soon as the weather improves even slightly. Please listen carefully to the announcements and make sure you are ready to board the aircraft whenever boarding is announced. Any passenger who fails to board, will be doing so at their own risk and we will not take responsibility for it”. The engine was shut off again and everyone huffed and puffed and took out their cabin bags.

     Soon after we took our bags, the pilot comes back on the intercom, “Hello folks, I have some good news for you. Looks like the main runway is available for take off. There is some equipment there which will help us get the plane in the air even with poor visibility. So please go back to your seats, put your bags up and prepare to enjoy the flight!”
     All of us dumped our bags back on the cabin racks and got ready again for take off. The pilot taxied on to the main runway. But hey, life isn’t that simple. He came back on the speaker, “We apologize once again for the inconvenience, but I have just been told that this runway was shut down a couple of minutes ago for a 2 hour maintenance. Please prepare to deplane. A bus will take you to the arrival lounge where you can pick up the bags you checked in. After that, you will have to go to the departure lounge and check in your bags once again, go through security and board the plane when the boarding call is made. We once again deeply apologize for this inconvenience.
     Now the passengers started getting verbally hostile towards us. A man standing next to me asked me very politely, “Ma’am, are you happy now that you have put 200 passengers to so much trouble? Do you know that I’ve come from the US just 3 days ago and I am tired and jetlagged and desperately waiting to get to my home in Bangalore?”

     That was it. I had enough of the hostile glares and barbs we got for no fault of ours. I launched into a speech which, in my opinion, should go down in history and literature along with Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech and Portia’s speech about the Quality of Mercy. I gently, but loud enough for everyone to hear, said, “For your information, sir, we’ve also come from the US. We too landed 3 days back. We’re also tired and jetlagged and hungry. There was an indefinite delay in departure and there was no information about the scheduled time for take off. We came to the airport at 9 in the morning. We were right there near the check in desk till 1 pm. My children then got hungry. We were looking for something to eat when an airline employee at the desk directed us to this lounge. There were no announcements on that floor. We spent time just enough to eat one samosa each. How were we supposed to know that in the time we took to reach the lounge, eat that measly samosa and get back down, boarding would be announced? Do you think we are that dumb to inconvenience 200 passengers just so we can eat a samosa? Who is to be blamed for not making announcements on all the floors? Who will take the responsibility for wrongly directing us to the lounge which was completely shut off from the rest of the airport? Who is to be blamed for the flight being delayed from 10 a.m. to 2 pm when a lot of the other airlines were operating on schedule? How are we to know that a 10 minute delay on our part for no fault of ours, should get us in so much trouble?

     I could have gone on and on, but my husband put his hand on my shoulder and indicated that I should stop. My strong words seemed to take effect and the gentleman next to me even started to make small talk with us about where we lived in the US. No one else said a word and we all made our way out of the aircraft onto a bus which took us to the arrival lounge for some inexplicable reason. We had to collect our checked in luggage and found our way back to the departure lounge where we had to go through the whole rigmarole of checking in our baggage and waiting for take off. We were provided with the exclusive service of two “body guards” from the airline whose main mission was to make sure we didn’t disappear again. We weaved and clawed and pushed our way past the crowds to security and then boarded the aircraft again. Thanks to our “bodyguards”, we were among the first to board. We noticed that the first thing that all the passengers did on boarding the flight, before even looking for their seats, was to assure themselves that we were there, seated and belted in our proper places. Hey, we became famous, only notoriously so!

     We finally took off from Mumbai at 6 pm instead of the scheduled 10 a.m. We reached Bangalore around 7.30 pm. We had asked my parents not to come to the airport since they were sick. Very smartly arranged for a pre-paid cab, settled ourselves comfortably in it and told the cabbie to go for it like he was being chased by the mob. Only little hassle – cabbie man didn’t know how to reach the place. My husband, very confident of his skill for remembering directions, said, “Hey, never mind, we used to live here. We’ll guide you!” Or so he thought! but it was dark and it looked like in the span of 6 years, the old Bangalore had been totally uprooted and a whole new alien city had taken its place. Street names had changed, old buildings had been demolished and new ones had taken their place. We went round and round the jolly ol’ town and after numerous SOS calls to my home, making my parents even sicker with worry, we finally reached home at 10 pm, tired, hungry and worn-out. What a day it had been!
     Now don’t get me started talking about our return trip when we got stuck at London Heathrow during the terrorist bomb threat of Aug 06!

     posted by Dolphin on 10-26-2007 at 3:25 pm

102. Congratulations on the daughter, Darren.

     posted by Sara on 4-7-2009 at 12:25 pm

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