This past weekend, I witnessed someone having a pretty bad day. Easily, it was one of the worst days that I had seen in a long time. Inspired by his series of mishaps, I began to wonder, "What would constitute the worst day ever?" The result is this column, which has been examined by the authorities and confirmed to actually be the worst day ever. It even gained the WDE Committee seal of approval. Let us begin.
Our protagonist, Brian, wakes up hung-over in the middle of the street, surrounded by people, not knowing how he arrived at such a location. As Brian looks around at his surroundings, he becomes aware of two things: he is in the middle of a fiery feminist rally, and he is wearing his friend's "Theta Chi: Stuffing Boxes Since 1948" t-shirt. Brian manages to escape with only minor brain damage.
While fleeing, he remembers that his big job interview with J.P. Morgan is in less than an hour. Luckily, Brian finds his car less than a few hundred yards away from the feminist rally. Unluckily, Brian finds that his car has been filled with oranges and that his tail pipe has been stuffed with bananas. "Crap, not again," he thinks to himself.
It takes Brain such a long time to shovel this massive amount of fruit out of his vehicle that he no longer has time to go home, shower and change. Brain remembers that he always keeps a spare suit in his trunk for situations such as these, so he hops in his car and heads towards the city.
In the parking garage of J.P. Morgan, Brian gets out of the car and pops the trunk. "Oh no," Brian thinks to himself, as he realizes that the suit in his trunk is not a business suit, but a zebra suit. After much deliberation, Brian chooses to wear the zebra suit (complete with tail) over his current vomit-encrusted outfit.
This is a bad choice. It turns out that the interviewer's parents were slain by a ravenous zebra in the late '70s. To make matters worse, Brian's friends switched his real resume with a "joke" resume as a sportive shenanigan. This resume informs the reader that Brian's past employers include "butt-sniffer" and "Dr. Octopus," and that his middle name is, in fact, "Lumpy Vagina."
Brian leaves the interview a broken, disheartened man in a zebra costume. He remembers that his prescription medication for his shrinking genitalia has been filled, so he heads over to Brooks Pharmacy to pick it up.
Brian hops out of his vehicle, and is shocked and appalled at what he sees. There, in the Brooks Pharmacy parking lot is Brian's girlfriend, hooking up with Chewbacca. "How the hell am I supposed to compete with that?" he wonders to himself.
"Why are you dressed up like a zebra?" Chewbacca moans.
"Shut up, Chewbacca," Brian replies.
Brian enters the pharmacy and finds that it is giving away complimentary issues of the New York Times. "Hey," Brian thinks to himself, "this is the first decent thing to happen to me all day."
He picks up the paper and finds that on the cover is a story entitled, "People Who Are Neither Attractive nor Well-Liked and Are Most-Likely to Find Their Girlfriends Cheating on Them With Someone Who Actually Doesn't Exist," with a big picture of him in a zebra costume just below. "Crap, not again," Brian thinks to himself.
Thirsty, Brian purchases a bottle of spring water at the pharmacy. Little does he know that a few days prior, a spring water company employee filled one of the bottles with pure grain alcohol in order to get fired. This is that bottle. Somehow, Brian drinks the entire thing before realizing this. Brian is black-out drunk for the next two hours.
Brian wakes up, again not knowing where he is. After taking in his surroundings, he realizes that he is in the Tufts Fitness Center and that it is 5:30 p.m., which he remembers is the most popular time for students to go to the gym.
Oh yeah, he also realizes that his penis has somehow become lodged in the water fountain. "Oh, the humiliation!" Brian screams, still dressed like a zebra. Brian remains in such a state just long enough so that his day qualifies as the worst day ever. "At least I'm the best at something," Brian thinks. Shut up, Brian.
So there you have it, the worst day ever. The next time that you fail that test, fall down and scrape your knee, or get murdered by a zebra, just remember, "At least I'm not Brian." Also worth remembering is never to drink from the fitness center water fountain ever again.
Jeff Volinski is a senior majoring in mechanical engineering. He can be reached at Jeffrey.Volinski@tufts.edu.
