I was at the grocery store the other day, and after the cashier gave me the receipt and handed me my bags, she looked at me, she smiled and said, “Have a great day!” And I wanted to be like, excuse me, but don’t tell me what to do, OK? Why don’t you concentrate on your day? You want to have a great day? Fine. But how about just leaving me alone with my day, to do with it as I see fit?

And so, fuck that lady, bossing me around, I had the shittiest day ever. I went home and left my groceries out on the table for the whole day. The milk got warm, I had to throw the whole gallon out, the ice cream melted, my dog wound up jumping on top of the kitchen table to lick everything up. It was chocolate ice cream, and so of course he got really sick.

I had to call in to work, “Hey boss, my dog just ate a bunch of chocolate ice cream, so I have to take him to the vet,” and my boss was like, “Listen Rob, you can’t keep calling out like this so last minute. What am I supposed to do this late in the day? It’s way past time where I could’ve gotten someone else to take your shift.”

So I got fired, yep, my day was taking a sharp turn south. I got to the vet and my dog, he was like collapsing, I kept having to prop him upright just so he could take another few steps, and then it was the same thing, collapse, throw up, cough, prop up, walk. Finally we got to the office and the vet told me, “I don’t know that there’s much we can do right now,” and right as he said that, standing there scratching his chin, my dog dropped dead.

Totally not a good day. And the vet told me, “Look, I’m really sorry, but it’s going to cost two hundred bucks to dispose of the body,” and I was like, “Are you kidding me? I don’t have two hundred bucks,” to which he said, “Well, how were you planning on paying me today if your dog wound up surviving? Nothing here costs less than two hundred bucks.” And I didn’t like being talked down to like that, so I said, “Oh yeah? Nothing? Well what about those,” I was pointing to this display of leashes and collars that he had by the door.

“I was talking about medicine, treatment. That stuff over there costs twenty, thirty bucks, depending on the leash.” I said, “Nice try doc, you said nothing. You weren’t specific.” And so I hoisted the dog’s body over my shoulder, I threw a twenty on his desk and grabbed a new collar on the way out.

It took three black garbage bags to hold the dog without ripping the plastic, but I got him in there, that and the new leash I bought for him post-mortem. Everything was settling in, the dog, he being dead, me throwing away twenty bucks to prove a point. I had a lot of trouble carrying the bag to the park, and when I finally managed to get it inside one of the public trashcans, some Parks Department employee came running over, “Hey! You can’t dump that here!”

So I took off, I got back to my house, and, never having cleaned up any of that milk or melted ice cream, the whole place stunk. I don’t know how the flies got in so fast, but they were all over it, the spill, the rest of the groceries. I couldn’t find a mop so I got some old newspaper I found in the basement to sop everything up. But the newspaper print bled, the paper wasn’t absorbent, I just wound up making more of a mess than I had in the first place.

Eventually I just gave up, fuck this, the whole dog thing was really starting to weigh on me. I felt like I needed to cry but I couldn’t muster up the emotion necessary to really have any relief, it was just a ball of misery sitting right under my throat. Finally I decided that I’d better eat something, so I went back to the grocery store to get some bread, I’d make some peanut butter and jelly or something.

“Thanks a lot!” it was the same cashier ringing me up again, I couldn’t believe it. “Have a great night!” and I took the bag, I looked her right in the eye and said, “The fuck you just say to me?”