You may remember my article from November 2018, Top 10 terrible yet hilarious things that have happened to me. I’ve still had unusually bad luck in the past year, but don’t worry — it’s still as funny as ever.
1. Finals and I don’t mix
I’m not sure what happens to my brain during finals season, but for some reason all my common sense goes out the window. It’s like my brain is focusing so much on remembering things for exams that it forgets how to function — this happens at the end of every semester. Have I somehow forgotten what time my class was — a class that I had been attending for literal months — and shown up an hour early? Yes. Have I driven away from the McDonald’s drive-thru window without my food, even after I’ve paid? Embarrassingly, yes. Did I disassociate so deeply while listening to a podcast that I was startled when the hosts laughed really loud? Also yes. How did I make it to adulthood?
2. The fire drill incident
This bout of bad luck feels like it’s straight out of a movie — I was in the shower when the fire alarm went off. I waited for a minute just to make sure it was really the alarm and not my imagination, but I begrudgingly wrapped myself in a towel and made my way outside to discover it was only a drill. Then the University fire official had the audacity to call me out in front of my entire apartment for not getting dressed before I came outside. Apparently, I am worth more burnt than undressed.
3. Thanks for visiting!
In case you weren’t aware, the University has two art museums — the Fralin Museum of Art and the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Museum. I am a docent at the Fralin, and we give countless tours every week to groups across Virginia. Usually these are for students, and I prefer leading groups of elementary schoolers — they’re funny, creative and will say just about anything. Occasionally there will be a child that doesn’t want to participate, but that’s to be expected. But what I wasn’t expecting was for a child to shout “No!” in my face while I was telling his third-grade class to have a good day. I do have to give him credit though — he knows what he’s about.
4. Where is my son?
My cat is smart, for the most part. He knows to come to the door if he sees me outside. He knows that if he hears his treat bag, he should come running. He even knows how to fetch. But whenever there’s a loud noise, it scares him and all smarts leave his body. This is how we lost him on move-in day. He was in the garage, running around and doing cat stuff, when my mother opened the garage door to pack my things. The loud noise freaked him out and he ran. We couldn’t find him for 12 whole hours. And to make matters worse, he’s an emotional support animal — it’s hard to be supported by a missing pet.
5. Fun in the ER
Sometimes our bodies will hurt, but it’s when the pain persists that it’s best to get to a doctor. This summer, I somehow managed to contract costochondritis, an inflammation of the cartilage in my chest. It can happen after excessive strain or exercise — which I assure you was not my case — or after coming down with a virus. It had been painful for me to take deep breaths for almost a week when I finally went to the ER to find out what was going on — and of course I was there for four hours. I even had to get a CT scan just to make sure one of my organs hadn’t exploded. It’s just my luck that I would end up with a condition with a peak age of 12 to 14.
6. I got scammed and contracted bronchitis
In my last Top 10 terrible things article, I wrote about my bad luck in France when I lost my backpack in a taxi. Well, apparently Europe is an unlucky place for me regardless of the country. I took the 2019 J-Term course in Rome, and by the time I got to my hotel, I had already overpaid for my taxi ride. Lots of drivers will overcharge silly and confused tourists — like me — who have just spent almost nine hours on a plane. I thought that was going to be my only bad luck of the trip, but I somehow managed to catch bronchitis and was nearly too sick to get on the return flight.
7. Buses, finals and I especially don’t mix
As previously mentioned, I lose my mind during finals. I try to mentally prepare myself to avoid crises, but no matter how much I try to keep my wits about me, it never works. When you combine finals and loss of common sense with buses, it’s truly a recipe for disaster. I’ve gotten on the wrong bus without even thinking, and of course it was going in the totally opposite direction of where I needed to go. I’ve even gotten on the wrong bus from my apartment, which I had to exit as soon as possible and call an Uber because — you guessed it — I was running late for an exam.
8. Ancho, please behave
My cat really is a good boy. He’s so good with strangers that we can attend Trick-or-Treating on the Lawn every year in costume. But there’s something about the vet that is truly upsetting for him. Maybe it’s the shots or having his temperature taken. Or maybe it’s because I once had to leave him there to get tested for swelling on his face that turned out to have been from a bee sting. Either way, he gets fussy when we visit the vet — except he’s starting to take it to the extreme. I’m talking scratching the vet on the face and even swiping at me. He behaved so badly at his last visit that he has to be sedated the next time he has a check-up. I’ve never been so embarrassed as a parent.
9. My new therapist
I absolutely believe anyone with any sort of issue could benefit from therapy. My therapist is really cool and helpful, but she’s also super straightforward and not afraid to call me out for creating unnecessary problems for myself. Once she snorted at me when I said uncertainty made me anxious — which I admit is a ridiculous worry to have because nothing is certain. But still, are therapists allowed to laugh at you?
10. Anxiety runs deep
Some people don’t develop anxiety until college or once they start to interact more with the real world. I have been unlucky enough to be anxious pretty much since birth. My mom has countless stories of me being so freaked out about things that I couldn’t sleep, even if they would logistically never affect me. I was anxious about carbon monoxide, tornadoes, thunderstorms and even those aliens from “Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders.” As a college student, those things don’t worry me anymore — now it’s taxes, climate change and existential dread that keeps me up at night.
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