Tears of anger

I woke up and turned on my laptop; might be a response to one of my job queries…

The screen was black; my laptop had crashed. I took a deep breath and tried to calm down: I went to get a cup of coffee, chugged it and left the apartment. On the way to the newsroom, I remembered it was my boyfriend’s birthday. There was a party for him that night at a friend’s. I was miles away; and his ex-girlfriend was supposed to come. Fabulous.

Another deep breath. I pasted the brightest-possible smile on my face and entered the newsroom. It was too crowded, people editing and proofreading all around. Pretending to be up to speed, I went up to my editor and asked about my story. It was a complete mess, apparently; he was working on it right at that moment. I went blank, sat down and started editing. But I was doing anything but... Suddenly, I felt very, very tired.

It was enough surprises for the day, so I decided to go home, get some sleep and then get to work on some more writing – I still needed to finish the….

On the way home, my phone died in the middle of a conversation. I tried to remember the list of groceries my uncle had told me to buy. I smushed the phone into my bag, (what a useless piece of…)  and was on the edge of dissolving into a river of tears, when I reached the store. Must collect myself… I found the items as best as I could remember. Doing better now.  In fact, I thought, I was holding myself together pretty well, until the stupid cashier messed up something with the register, so I was unable to pay with my bankcard. This only happened when she was there. In my bad German, I tried to tell her that. She didn’t seem to care. I wanted to scream at her, but I couldn’t. She spoke no English, and my German just wasn’t up to the job.

I ran out of the store, mad at everyone, mad at myself. Tears of anger… it was one of those days I wished I had slept straight through.

- Bojana Simeunovic