Judith Viorst’s children’s book, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” is a story I often read to my kids.

It is about a little boy named Alexander, who from the moment he crawls out of bed encounters one mishap after another.

“I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible no good, very bad day.”

Poor Alexander, nothing is going his way and even as his day progressed things got worse, so he made a proclamation that he was going to try and escape this string of unfortunate events.

“I think I’ll move to Australia,” he says.

No doubt, all of us at some point in life have experienced a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

My latest happened this week.

On Monday night after I had worked all day, I came home to finish up some laundry I had started earlier in the morning.

To my dismay, my washing machine, which is barely over a year old, had failed to spin out the blanket I was washing.

I tried several times to reset the cycle, but the same thing kept happening over and over.  The tub would just fill with water and then it would drain with no spinning.

I tried to problem solve by going to Google. The website pertaining to my model washer suggested unplugging the machine, therefore I went back to my laundry room and proceeded to pull my washer far enough from the wall that I could get behind it and unplug it.

Upon doing so the hose that drains water from the machine popped out and water got all over the floor.

I grabbed a towel and proceeded to wedge myself between the washer and dryer in an effort to clean up the mess and in doing so, I accidentally pushed the dryer too much from the wall.

This caused the dryer vent to come loose.

By this time I was about to lose it, but continued mopping up the water.

Unfortunately, the one towel that I had grabbed for the clean up was not adequate therefore I had to squeegee from behind the washer only to find that my aging dog had left her own wet spot.

I wanted to move to Australia.

I was finally able to get everything cleaned up and running and remembered that there will sometimes be terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.

But just like Alexander’s mother told him at the end of the story, “Days like that are going to happen. Even in Australia.”

    

Terri Cowart Frazier is a staff writer for The Vicksburg Post. You may reach her at terri.frazier@vicksburgpost.com.