My Shitty Weekend.

You just know the weekend is going to be shitty when you wake up late on a Friday morning realising that the reason the alarm clock on your phone didn’t ring was because it went off, due to the low battery that you forgot to recharge the night before. Don’t you just love those mornings when everything else goes wrong when you’re already late? Besides having to change your shirt because you dropped toothpaste on it, you also have to return to the house twice: once to fetch your cell phone and the other your wallet. It’s no surprise that the bus also decides to arrive late and that just as you get on, you realise that you got a run in your stockings and that the old man standing next to you probably took his bath last Christmas.
Out of pure frustration, you concentrate on making faces to the toddler sitting in front of you who manages to get you smiling with his giggles and laughter.

You just know your weekend is going to be shitty when your boss decides to arrive earlier than you do and greets you with the wonderful news that you’ll have to make some last minute changes to his flight tickets, which need to be confirmed by the end of the day. The phones decide to ring right off the hook and all the exceptionally demanding clients decide that this Friday is the perfect day to check up on their tariffs. Your little tiff with the fax machine was nothing compared to the twenty minutes it took you to fix the photocopy machine that should’ve retired five years ago. Everybody has their on-the-brink-of-the-edge clients that appear to you instead of their therapist and expect you to listen to why their life is falling apart. Yours walks in just as you have the photocopy machine’s toner in one hand, and a rusty screwdriver in the other. As you watch her lips move, you thank God that you didn’t take that psychologist’s course after all. Once you realised that you can’t shut her up, you decide to listen more carefully and try to help her… Sometimes a stranger’s words can have more effect than a friend’s. Thirty minutes later and a million thanks, you’re invited to a dinner (where you will conveniently meet her youngest son). Instead, you “regrettably” fib involvement but somehow that doesn’t sway her… fifteen minutes later she’s back with her son who looks as confused as you do. Luckily you both laugh it off.

Twenty minutes before closing time, you finally managed to speak to the colleague that you’ve been trying to call all day and her answer just happens to keep you at work for another two hours to finish sorting the file you’d been meaning to sort for over three weeks. As soon as everyone else leaves: you pump up the music, take off your shoes and sing until you finished what you’d thought you’d only get half-way though.

You know your weekend is going to be shitty when your handbag’s wing breaks and all your belongings end up on the recently rain-washed-wet floor. The empty growl from your stomach reminds you that you have no leftovers that you can heat up and your only option is to cook up a meal. Ignoring the old saying that you should never go shopping on an empty stomach, you leave the supermarket loaded with groceries and swear at yourself when you realise that you forgot to buy that bulb that needs replacing in the bathroom. Walking into an empty house, you wonder if you really shouldn’t consider buying a cat but shrug the idea when you realise that it would only make your grocery bags heavier and that you’d be responsible for a furry face disappointed that you arrive home at such hours! You do however feel proud of the spaghetti bolognaise that you made just the way your dad taught you and mentally tell yourself that it’s the perfect way to impress that date that you haven’t had in ages.

You know the rest of your weekend is going to be shitty when you’re woken up on a Saturday morning at 9:30am by a client asking you if he can come in for a meeting. Trying to feign a sleepy voice you explain that you don’t work on weekends and assure him that you will call him on Monday. You swear at yourself for not asking him for his phone number and then at him for not identifying it. Not able to get back to sleep you get up and decide to start on breakfast. You burn your toast and take fifteen minutes to open the jam jar that you still hadn’t tasted since making it with your grandmother. After another three quarters of an hour of trying to swat a fly that just won’t get out of your kitchen you decide to give up and start on the cleaning. You break a glass while doing dishes, the shower curtain falls on your head when cleaning the bathroom and the trash bag tears open two steps from the garbage bins. You also prick your finger when trying to sew back the wing on to your handbag that you bought only a week ago. You then resume your cleaning and sing to the end of your broomstick along with the Corrs CD that you haven’t heard since high school, and develop a new relationship talking with all your possessions whose dust you wipe off. You spend another thirty minutes trying to swat that fly that has now conveniently found your bedroom and lay in bed convinced that you got him due to the ceased buzzing noise. You thank God for the opportunity to listen to your music, light your candles and meditate just before you fall into a relaxed sleep.

You know your weekend was a shitty one when you wake up to the neighbours fighting outside your window on a Sunday morning. You take a peek out your window and realise that almost everyone from your block was watching the spectacle outside your window and that they saw you peeking. Waking up with energy, you decide that on your last day of rest you will take the opportunity to pack your summer’s clothes and take out the winter’s. Not only do you get nostalgic from unpacking and packing suitcases, your desire to cry increases when you realise that all your winter’s clothes need ironing and that the fly from the night before is still alive in your bedroom. Deciding to make a quick stop at the supermarket, you buy all the things you’d forgotten to buy on Friday and think that your luck is finally taking a turn for the better… until you get stuck at the cashier due to the washing powder that was mistakenly rung up twice. You try to smile at the impatient shoppers behind you and sigh when you realise that outside, it’s just begun to rain. Not only did the cab driver take the longer way home, he was also as deaf as a door and almost slammed your fingers shut when removing your groceries from a grimy car trunk. Two phone calls announce expected visitors, one from your friend and another from your mother. Hopelessly looking at the clothes that need to be ironed and then at the groceries, you decide to take one thing at a time. However with Dido playing in the background you somehow manage to get almost everything done. Not only do your guests offer to make the coffee and do your dishes, they also keep you smiling and laughing the whole time through.

Taking a hot shower with all the essential herbs and essences inside my body scrub, I took just a little longer under the water and took my time in applying all those sweet smelling lotions that make me feel like a woman. I got into my winter’s pyjamas, thick socks and my purple robe with teddies on them. Outside the rain falls in sheets making the most relaxing sound known to man. Without a doubt I will sleep like a baby tonight! Pulling the curtain aside, I sit on my couch and decide to watch the rain for a while in the darkness before going to sleep. My last sms for the evening was of a great friend in South Africa that taught me the power of “choosing another emotion”. This is the art of looking at things in a different perspective, preferably the positive one. All I can conclude is that my shitty weekend was the greatest one I’ve had in months… And that I won’t go to bed lonely as long as that fly continues to be my roommate.