You know those highly specific mornings. The ones where nothing goes fundamentally, catastrophically wrong, but the universe decides to issue a relentless, highly coordinated series of micro-aggressions just to test the limits of your psychological endurance. You look back at it later, once the dust has settled, and you logically know that none of it was a big deal. But in the moment? In the moment, it feels like a targeted cosmic conspiracy.
Today was definitively one of those mornings.
The very first sign of impending doom was the physical act of getting out of bed. "Getting out" is perhaps too generous a term; it was more of a desperate, undignified roll over the mattress edge until gravity did the rest of the work. The physical labor from the weekend is still very much residing in my muscles, currently staging a vocal protest rally. Add to that yesterday's visit to the physiotherapist—who apparently moonlights as an enthusiastic chiropractor and managed to crack joints I was previously unaware I possessed—and I woke up feeling entirely chronologically displaced. My birth certificate claims I am a modern adult, but my spine was aggressively screaming that I am, in fact, an 85-year-old Victorian ghost. But whatever. I rolled, I landed, I was upright. Shockingly, I was even on time.
I shuffled to the kitchen to initiate the sacred morning ritual: turn on the coffee machine, then pack the laptop into the bag. And right there, waiting for me, was the second red flag of the day. Literally red. The LED lights on my plugin battery were flashing an angry, menacing crimson.
A minor setback, I told myself. I grabbed my freshly brewed coffee, feeling somewhat resilient, and went to investigate why the digital world was forsaking me.
The modem was offline. Dead. Bereft of life.
I did what any desperate modern human does: I performed the sacred, panic-induced rite of unplugging it and plugging it back in. Nothing. I stared at it. I threatened it. Still nothing. Luckily, the kids are off to school, and both my partner and I are working from the office today, so the immediate crisis of a disconnected household was temporarily averted. But I know exactly what this means. The modem has given up the ghost and needs a full replacement. Since I am commuting to Brussels for work today, coordinating a new box by tomorrow is going to be a logistical side-quest of epic proportions. I’ll have to spend my lunch break on the phone with my provider, begging them to either teleport a new one to my doorstep or finding a local shop where I can scavenge one tonight.
If I thought leaving the house would improve the situation, the Belgian railway system quickly disabused me of that foolish notion.
Upon stepping onto the train, I was immediately assaulted by a solid wall of scent. Someone in my immediate vicinity had not just applied perfume; they had seemingly slipped, fallen, and nearly drowned in a vat of industrial-grade synthetic musk. I simply do not understand the thought process here. Why do some people feel the overwhelming need to broadcast their olfactory presence from three time zones away? Take a shower, and if you really must, apply a subtle, fleeting hint of fragrance. Are their own nasal passages entirely burned out? Are they immune to their own chemical warfare? Because of this walking perfumery, the humble slices of bread I brought for my breakfast absorbed the ambient air. I ended up chewing on a sandwich that tasted distinctively like cheap lavender, sandalwood, and regret.
Naturally, the train was packed to the gills, meaning I couldn't escape the miasma, and inevitably, someone sat right next to me.
Enter: The Slurper.
Of all the things my new seatmate could have brought for breakfast, they chose a banana shake. Now, for crucial context, I absolutely despise bananas. I hate the taste, I hate the texture, and I intensely loathe the smell. Combine that fruity stench with my hyper-sensitivity to the toxic perfume cloud we were currently trapped in, and my stomach began doing Olympic-level acrobatics. But the smell wasn't even the worst part. It was the sound. This person wasn't just drinking a beverage; they were aggressively extracting a thick sludge through a plastic straw with a wet, resonant slurping sound that echoed in the deepest recesses of my soul. Schluuuuurp. Smack. Schluuuuurp. It was like sitting next to a thirsty, uncoordinated walrus.
And just to ensure my comfort levels remained at absolute zero, I realized I had somehow chosen the one seat on the entire train positioned directly beneath a rogue air-conditioning vent. Outside, it is a mild, completely harmless 14 degrees. There is absolutely no need for artificial cooling. Yet, this vent was blasting a steady, relentless stream of arctic, gale-force wind directly onto the back of my neck. I can already feel the stiff neck developing, settling in right next to the aches the physiotherapist so generously left me with yesterday.
There is a slight comedic silver lining to the commute, however. The banana-slurping walrus next to me has diligently opened his laptop. He spent a solid five minutes booting it up, adjusting the screen angle, and adopting a posture of intense corporate concentration. But I can see his screen. He is doing absolutely nothing. He has merely opened his email client to ensure his status icon turns green. He is putting on a magnificent, Oscar-worthy theatrical performance of "working" for the benefit of absolutely no one on this train. You just have to respect the sheer commitment to the grift.
So, here I sit. Freezing, aching, tasting perfume, smelling bananas, and listening to a symphony of slurps. I am incredibly curious to see if the trajectory of this Tuesday improves, or if this is simply the recurring theme for the next twelve hours.
Upon finally stepping off the train, escaping my frozen, banana-scented perfume chamber, I immediately called my internet provider. Plot twist: it turns out my modem hasn't actually given up the ghost after all. The helpdesk cheerfully informed me that it’s simply an unreported network outage in our area. Logically, this means there is a glimmer of hope that the connection will magically be restored by the time I get back. But given the sheer, unadulterated string of bad luck that has dictated my morning so far? My optimism is currently hovering somewhere around absolute zero.
Actually, I already know exactly how the day ends. When I finally make it home tonight, exhausted from my battle with the elements, the telecom providers, and public transport, I will open the front door not to a warm, loving welcome, but to a chorus of sheer despair from my family.
"There is no internet!"
"The TV isn't working!"
"How do we survive in the Stone Age?!"
Eighty-five-year-old Victorian ghost or not, it’s going to be a very long Tuesday.
Cheers,
Peter