Ashleigh found a book of mine yesterday. She brought it out to me to read because she liked the pictures of animals in it. But it wasn’t a children’s book.
Remember this?
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The Blue Day Book by Bradley Trevor Greive. It was released in 2000 and has sold a million bajillion* copies since then. (*I made this stat up, although it’s probably very close to the truth).
Why do I own this book? All because of a single day in my life.
Rewind to late in the year 2000. I was at university, living on campus. I’d hurt my toe a few days before playing volleyball. This sounds like nothing, but if you can picture a black and blue, toenail-less stub of something that kind of resembles a toe, but looks more like something you’d find in a box in a horror movie, you’ll understand what it was like. It throbbed constantly, and I couldn’t put pressure on it at all.
I had an essay due at 5.00pm and, as most people do when they’re at university, I’d pulled an all-nighter finishing it up. It was for a Commerce subject, and it had taken me ages to get the right symbols in the right places and format it correctly.
It was approximately 5.57am. Approximately. I typed the last reference into my bibliography. I held down the Ctrl key with my left pinky. My ring finger was on its way to the S key when…
The power went out.
And stayed out.
I panicked. I freaked out. I absolutely and totally lost my head. I knew that I hadn’t saved the document once during the mad, frenzied all-night typing. Auto-save didn’t exist then, or if it did, it hadn’t yet been installed on my prehistoric machine.
The power stayed out. The panic escalated.
The power stayed out for just under an hour. When it came back on, I searched in vain for the document on my computer.
Well, not entirely in vain. The document was there. I breathed a sigh of relief and opened it. To see the title.
And nothing else.
I cried like a baby. (My college room-mates can attest to that – pre-7.00am wake-ups are at least five hours too early for your average uni student.) I searched. I spent hours trying to find pieces of the document on the computer and stick them back together in an assignment collage instead of simply rewriting the assignment.
I finally resigned myself to the fact that I would have to do it again. I sat there and retyped the assignment – what I could remember of it – hitting Ctrl+S after every sentence.
At 4.00pm, I decided it was as good as it was going to get. I also realised it would take me at least 45 minutes to make it the 700 metres down to the Commerce building. I hit Ctrl+S (even though I just had), then Ctrl+P, then Ctrl+S again (just to make sure), and grabbed the printout. I hobbled into university on my black and blue toenail-less stub of something that used to resemble a toe to hand it in. I made it on the dot of 5.00pm, just as the tutor was collecting the pile from the submission desk. One minute later and I would have had 10% of my marks deducted, something I was sure my last-minute rehash from the top of my head couldn’t withstand.
My foot was throbbing, I hadn’t slept, I’d wasted an entire day redoing something I’d spent all night on, I was certain I’d just handed in a rambling load of rubbish, and Cameron was away and uncontactable that weekend so wouldn’t be around to cheer me up. (Too bad there was no Twitter back then so I could write about my #firstworldproblems.)
So I did what all uni students do when they’re in need of cheering up.
I went to the bottle-O.
Being a classy chick from the country, my drink of choice back then (and even now on the extremely rare occasions I enjoy an alcoholic beverage) was Bundaberg rum. I purchased the bottle with the last of my savings and started the hobble back to college.
Halfway back, I dropped the bottle. It happened in slow motion, yet I couldn’t react fast enough to catch it. I watched in horror as the bottle drifted down, down towards the pavement.
Then heard the tinkling smash and the glug glug glug of delicious rummy goodness flowing down the gutter.
I cried like a baby. (My college room-mates can attest to that – they were far more sympathetic to my plight of lost alcohol than they had been to my plight of a lost assignment.)
When I finally hobbled back to my room, I did what everyone does when there’s nowhere else to turn.
I called my mum.
And she let me sook, rant, rave and cry like a baby. She didn’t bother suggesting that I could have done my assignment earlier in the week, that someone with my natural levels of coordination and grace should perhaps not play sport, or that there’s no use crying over spilt rum. She was just my mum.
And the following week, she even sent me a book to try and cheer me up.
With a special message at the front.
Something I’ll try to remember from now on. When the days are tough, when nothing seems to be going your way, and when you can only see the bad in your life, remember at least you haven’t been bitten by a penguin.
Unless you actually have been bitten by a penguin. In which case, I recommend a bottle of Bundaberg rum. Wrapped in bubble wrap.
Have you ever experienced a day that was a comedy of errors from go to whoa? What words of wisdom do you rely on to cheer yourself up?
I love Bundy. I love coming across other women that love Bundy. We need to share a bottle I think. Reading your post made my eyes well. Partly because I could feel your plight and partly because I have a story about this book as well. One that involves my dad, which is pretty much why there are tears, most things that involve me thinking of him make me want to cry. Fairy wishes and butterfly kisses lovely
Give me a year and a half and I may join you. For a very weak one. Which will still be enough to see me go cuh-razy! x
Are you sure you didn’t get bitten by a penguin? Everything else happened. I’m sorry to tell you I laughed at your plight though I know it was not the least bit funny at the time.
At least you have a great Mum!
Aren’t you at least tell what grade you got on the report?
No need to apologise – I laugh too. Now. And I can’t believe that the world seemed so dark that day when it really wasn’t that bad!
No idea – I know I definitely passed, and went well in the subject overall. Good thing it was all still fresh in my mind!
My heart would melt if that happened to me. It has happened to me with blog posts before… and i have had to type again … but nothing like your experience… words of wisdom… if that is the worst thing that ever happens, then you are doing alright xxx
I’ve not yet lost a blog post. But, by saying that, I’ve just ensured I soon shall!
Great words of wisdom. I still look back and can’t believe I got as upset as I did!
I LOVE this book, it takes pride of place in my personal bookcase, alongside another book called Finding Mr Right. I used to read both as an often sad/single uni student, or when some really ‘bad’ thing happened to me. In hindsight I used to gain strength from these sayings. Your mum totally rocks sending you this!!!! xx
I hadn’t looked at the book in years. It was fun to flick through again! And yes, she certainly does rock!
That is absolutely gorgeous! I love your mums note. And I can relate to all things university … I didn’t even have a computer. Mine was on a typewriter. Electric … but still. Have you ever noticed how much stuff gets spilled on paper? Retype …
Great story!
Leanne @ Deep Fried Fruit
Ah, spillage. Fun stuff! At least you’d have the (ruined) assignment actually there in front of you as you retyped though. (Clearly searching for a silver lining…)
This is what happens when you live in a non-English speaking country for almost a decade…I have never heard of that book!
But I do love your story and your mum’s message. So, what did you get for the assignment? A HD, right?
I doubt it very much, but I didn’t fail which is all that matters twelve years later!
Oh my GOD I love your mum. Can I borrow her? Hilarious. I’m sorry I laughed so hard at poor uni-Emily’s woe’s, but if you’re going to have a bad day, you have to do it properly, right? Ahhhh the bundy days, mixed with a little ginger beer, or in Dark and Stormy tins when we were feeling a bit flush with cash…
Please do laugh. That day of my life wasn’t much good for anything else! Even though, in retrospect, it really wasn’t that bad!
utterly hilarious and bittersweet at the same time and I’m with Kim on this one – can i borrow your mum? what a star! so enjoyed reading this, you made my sunday! (yes i know that makes me a bit of a loser but still!) thanks!!
Only if I get her back!
I’m so sorry that I laughed at this – but I’m exactly the sort of clutzy girl who shouldn’t be left unsupervised, so I can empathise! I want to know your result – did you do OK?!
I lost a piece in my sixth form English folio and with literally 14 minutes til hand in time, I raced to an empty classroom with typewriters (they weren’t even electric) and made up a piece on the spot – a review of a friend’s highschool play I had recently seen – as I typed (and I was a TERRIBLE typist then). I slotted that baby in, crossed my fingers and hoped. When it came back, it was my teacher’s favourite piece and she loved it, making comments about passion and research and blah blah blah. Got the highest marks in my class. Phew!
Yeah, I did okay. Phew!
Nice work saving your folio! Did you keep the piece?
Such a gorgeous little post – and your mum’s message is perfect! Believe it or not, this is my first time hearing about this book… I’ll have to look it up now.
The story about that uni work is so familiar! I remember doing that so many times, especially as I attended uni in the era of the floppy disk. Ahh, those were the days! Cheers for linking,
I laughed – I feel bad – I shall find myself a penguin and invite it to bite me ….
So in a hilarious irony, I commented twice last night and both times my comments just disappeared. I’m not making that up…