Monday: The Weekly Tragedy
By Caitlin Summers
The cacophonous sound of the alarm clock jolted me out of bed.
“What time is it?” I shouted, clambering down the stairs. Ugh! Why were all Monday mornings terrible? It was as if some nefarious god controlled my luck on Mondays, and he almost always had something horrible happen to me. For example: my dog died on a Monday. So did my Grandma. My best friend moved away on a Monday, and they announced they were going to stop serving pizza in the Cafeteria on (you guessed it!) a Monday. So waking up late on the one day I couldn’t possibly afford to be was no surprise to a Monday-hater like me.
Yawning, I walked into the kitchen to find my family eating acrid-smelling waffles. I quickly guessed that dad had been cooking, since most of the food he produced looked and smelled as it had already been eaten. Unfortunately, since no one wanted to risk getting on the patriarch’s bad side, he had yet to be informed of this.
I sat down, and scowled as my little sister gave me malevolent smile. Her eyes scanned me up and down, taking in my appearance with glee. Rumpled clothes and troll hair wasn’t exactly the look I had wanted, but since I had woken up an hour late, it was better than nothing!
She stopped staring and started a conversation with mom, talking in a chipper but somehow sinister way.
“Mother, guess what? I can spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! It’s not one of our spelling words, but I memorized it anyways. I can also spell it backwards. Isn’t that great! Do you want me to spell it now?”
Mom, as usual, was overjoyed at my sister’s knowledge. She always likes it when my sister tells her stuff, for reasons unknown to me.
I sighed, and suddenly decided to skip breakfast. I’d rather starve than eat the waffles. Instead, I gave them to our dog, a colossal beast named Monster. Monster thanked me by slobbering all over my face. Oh, joy.
My father, who had been missing from the scene, entered from the living room and gave me a grin. “Like the waffles?” he bellowed, making me wince.
I gave him a fake thumbs-up, which I thought was an appropriate response. It’s not lying if you don’t speak…right? Thankfully, he changed the subject and asked if I was ready to go.
“Yeah, I’m good.” I replied, staring at my sister, who was now wolfing down the waffles in an attempt to suck-up. After all these years trying to appeal to dad, she must have a stomach made of iron!
“Then let’s go! Take Your Daughter to Work Day is going to be great! And…don’t think I’ve forgotten you Rose. You get to come on Take Your Son to Work Day.” Dad said, as loud as ever, not knowing that these words were exactly why Rose was eating the toxic waffles.
I followed Dad out onto the front porch, and then to the car, where I hopped in and was immediately hit with a wave of claustrophobia. Dad’s car had to be the smallest in Connecticut, if not the whole U.S.
The car started…barely, and then we were driving through the neighborhood, but since Dad doesn’t believe in music, (ironically he thinks it’s “too loud”), my claustrophobia was replaced with immediate boredom.
Sighing, I stared out the window as we passed our next door neighbors. They stopped planting flowers to give us a wave. The Mays just happen to be award winning gardeners. It’s not exactly the best occupation for someone who lives near us, especially when Monster’s goal in life is to be a shovel.
We turned the street corner, and I finally convinced Dad to turn on the radio. I was happy with this until he started singing along. Ouch! How long was the ride there again? With my luck today, Dad’s office will have suddenly been moved to another state!
After the nauseating car ride full of “conversation” and Dad’s wince- worthy karaoke, we finally arrived at his work. I rubbed my eyes and unplugged my ears. I hadn’t been at Dad’s office since I was three years old, and I was excited to come back.
I got out of the car as fast as I could and stared at the building in front of me. As much as I wanted to believe my dad worked in a fantastic place, you had to admit his office has been neglected. The previously cheery-white paint had turned somewhat gray, and there was a giant crack in the glass of the window.
“Behold my wonderful workplace!” Dad shouted with a grin. I shook my head. He was obviously in denial about the building. It looked as if a tornado had hit it! Sighing, I followed him into his office, trying not to be too spooked when a piece of brick came falling down from the roof. Apparently, the building wasn’t impenetrable as Dad thought it was, as the stone caused a big knick in the wall to appear.
Inside, it looked even worse than the exterior. Papers were spread all around on tables, and a man was pacing while on the phone.
“Yes, I know you had a bad experience, but that wasn’t our fault! Since when does a travel agency control turbulence? Or the amount of time spent on the tarmac? Never! We just get you the tickets!” he shook his head in frustration as he talked, and I turned back to Dad in question.
“That’s Mr. Gray. He’s my assistant, and luckily for me, he deals with the daunting task of answering complaints,” Dad explained, leading me towards a small room to the left.
“So, has been business been well lately?” I asked, plopping down into a chair.
“It’s been ok,” He answered, sitting at his desk. “We haven't gotten many customers visiting the office for some reason… (What? Whoa, I really think he doesn't know why!)…but besides that, everything is normal.”
I shook my head since I couldn't think of an appropriate response, and then looked back up at my dad. “So…erm, what exactly am I supposed to do here?”
He stopped playing around with his computer, and frowned. “I guess I didn’t think of that! You could…read something. My partner, Angela, has a collection of poetry you could borrow. You like epics, and fantasy, and all that stuff, right?”
I nodded, although I hated reading anything but nonfiction, and I especially despised poetry. How could he not know what I could do here? What was the point of coming if I was bored out of my mind? I could do that already at school!
“On second thought, you should stay away from her. She doesn’t like to talk to people, and can get ticked-off pretty easily,” he continued, not noticing the annoyed look on my face.
I decided to take his advice and stay clear of Angela and her poems. Instead, I wearily made the trip to a drugstore a few blocks down, where I promptly bought a newspaper. Then I collapsed onto a bench and flipped through the pages. Since it was a Monday the news was depressive, and all I could see were stories about war, death, murder, more war, even more war, and bad weather. What happened to the good news? Why couldn’t they have a story about how the President has banned Mondays from existence? Now that would make my day.
I gave a deep sigh, folded up the newspaper, and walked slowly back to Dad’s office. Even though so far, this day had been horrible, I still couldn’t give up. Me, let Monday win? I don’t think so! Even if the day had been one hundred times worse, it wasn’t like I didn’t expect it. Monday is just Monday. It’s that oppressive, depressive, thing you dread coming all week, and you unwillingly trudge through when it arrives. Monday is, and always will be, the weekly tragedy.
