I've had bad days before. The times I was beaten, all of them. The day I learned my Grandmother died. The day I had to go to sleep because I had to wake up early for summer school. The time I missed my band recital. The second time I failed my driving test. The day I read my rejection letters from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Columbia. The day I learned I couldn't change my National Merit Scholarship award because I decided to change schools. The day I learned my other Grandmother died. The night my parent's truck got stolen while I was using it in El Paso. The day I lost my job and learned I might have testicular cancer.
OK ... now that I read all this, this day wasn't bad. But I certainly feel like shit right now, and the present is the only thing that matters. At least right now.
You wanna know how bad my day was? So I learn that I don't qualify for unemployment just before I have to go to "work." Like I said before, at this point I'm in a panicky, hopeless mood. But I have to go to "work."
I go to say goodbye to Grandmother. But she's not in her room, nor in the laundry room. She went out. So at the front door I am at a crossroads: Do I turn on the alarm or do I leave without doing so?
I know that if I got the unemployment I deserve, I would've been in a carefree mood and left alarm-free. But I felt out of control, so I tried to stop myself and think about what could happen under both cases. If I turn it on, there's a chance Grandmother would forget the code and the police will show up ... but she should know the code, and probably does know it, and if there's a chance Father comes home early, I won't hear the end of it. Then again, there's a good chance nothing will happen if I just go without setting the alarm ... but if somehow burglers target the house, well. ...
At the end, I fall back on my training and set the alarm. I need to eat -- two-buck Taco Bell instead of five-buck Kentucky Fried Chicken -- and I wanted to go.
Halfway down to "work," the phone rings. It's Mother. No, no, I can't go to the bank. But she wasn't calling about the bank; she was calling because the alarm company called her and said the alarm's on. You fucking kidding me?
After I call home -- although Mother promised she would call home, why couldn't you if you promised? -- I hear Grandmother, panicky and frazzled. She said the alarm's on and she tried to turn it off but she couldn't, and it somehow turned off by itself. Whatever. I had another choice; I could've just turned back home, cancelled "work" and made sure everything was OK. But I didn't want to add more drama to this really bad day, so I proceeded to Taco Bell.
At "work" at the U., I get another call. It said "Private Call." As soon as I answer, I hear this blaring siren in the background. Grandmother, again. "The alarm ... it's going off, and I can't do anything about it," she said (I think). I try to get information from her, but she passes the phone to her friend, who I didn't know was even there. After I talk to her about what the hell's going on, she passes me to her husband, another friend of Grandmother's.
I'm screaming at this point; hopefully the sound-proof booth I was in is sound-proof. I had no choice but to tell him, Grandmother's friend, the code; had a feeling that that would work. It's five digits, but goddammit, he kept leaving one off as he recited the code and punched the numbers on the keypad. I had to keep bellowing and bellowing through my cell before he got it inbetween his ears that he had to push five numbers, and the sound stopped. Goddamn, really?
I finally got home about 4 1/2 hours after all this shit started. Turns out she was shocked that I left before she came back from Sam's Club and had her hands full of stuff when the alarm went off. She became flustered and tried to remember the disarm code, but mixed up the tic-tac-toe sign with the "1" button. After a while of trying, it stopped. But then, when she either moved or opened the door (or something), the alarm sounded again. And again she didn't remember to punch in the code correctly, and again the alarm just shut off by itself.
She was so afraid that she'd set it off again that she left the door open, retreated into her room and waited for me to come back home. Unfortunately, this was the time her friends decided to drop by. And I'm guessing, though I don't know, they saw the door ajar and just helped themselves in, thus setting off the motion alarm again. That's when she called me when I was at "work."
There was nothing happening after my Grandmother's male friend turned off the alarm with the code I gave him. Maybe we have to change it now? Luckily, my parents didn't say anything about it when they got home. But I was afraid they would. That was my overiding concern, whether they'd be mad. In fact, I was afraid this would be the camel that broke the camel's back, the one mistake that would convince My Father to send Grandmother into the nurse's home. I hate that about it; I'm always thinking, "But what would they think?"
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