*Since I am alive and well and living in France, let’s take my use of the word “bad” with a grain of salt, shall we?
It started last night around 7pm, when I threw my laundry into the washing machine. At around 10pm, over two hours after the wash cycle had ended, I realized that it was still there. Unfortunately, the dryers were already in use and the laundry room was due to close before I could use them. I carried my cold wet clothes up to my room, defeated. My mom was on the phone with me, nearly pissing herself laughing as I wailed that I might have to resort to using a big scarf as a towel, since mine were damp and freezing cold. I hung my clothes around the room, draped on the radiator and over my wardrobe doors. In the morning I realize that in addition to still being half wet, many of my clothes are streaked with dust thanks to my brilliant placement on places I can’t reach to clean properly. Massive dilemma: what in the hell am I going to wear to work?
I settle hesitantly on tights with a 5-euro top from H&M that flirts the line between casual-but-short dress and beach cover-up. Thankfully I have a clean long cardigan, which I wear over it to (I’m hoping) make it look less like I’m two months early for Spring break. Dressed, I begin to pack my bag for work. I have approximately 6 minutes before I absolutely have to leave. And…my wallet is missing. I look everywhere even though I know it could only be in my bag because I only took it out to – oh, right. Laundry room. I put on my coat and run downstairs – and there’s my wallet, mocking me from on top of the dryer that I never got to use. Finally, I head out for the tram.
From about a block away, I see my tram pulling away from my stop. “That’s okay,” I think, “because there’ll be another one in three minutes.” And there was. And about 45 seconds after I got onto it, it nearly got into an accident, pitching forward and screeching to a halt and causing everyone to stumble a bit and a few people to scream. No matter though, we got right back on our way. My bus was at 9am. My tram pulled into the bus station at 9am. The bus was already gone. There’s another bus in 35 minutes, and it will get me to Blaye with exactly 6 minutes to spare before I’m due to begin teaching.
Okay. Coffee time. There’s a man who recently opened a tiny coffee/breakfast trailer at the bus stop, and he makes me an extra-hot cappuccino after he hears that I have half an hour to wait in the cold. He bids me “bon courage!” and I am off on my way. The cappuccino was great. Delightful, even. Heavenly. Until, 5 minutes into an hour-and-fifteen-minute long bus ride, it hit my bladder. By the time we reached Blaye I practically sprinted to the school and burst through the doors of the teacher’s lounge looking like an overly-caffeinated-and-potentially-dangerous lunatic. By some miracle I made it to class on time, where I was greeted by apathetic French teenagers in no mood to speak English. By 5pm this had gotten pretty old, but I guess it should have been clear from approximately 10pm last night that today was not meant to be a raging success. TGIF, eh?
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