A Terrible, Horrible, Rotten, No-Good Kind of Day (With a Happy Ending!)

Do you ever have those days where nothing seems to go right? That happened to me this morning. The batteries in my alarm clock died, so I woke up 40 minutes late for work. I'd planned to get to work a little bit early, so I was still ok, although it was going to be close. I threw on some clothes and dashed out the door to catch the bus. The bus wasn't as crowded as it normally is, so I thought maybe things were going to go well! How wrong I was...

About 13 seconds after I get on the bus, we get stuck in a significant traffic jam. It lasted a good 20 minutes. Apparently, there is a good bit of difference in the traffic pattern between 7:30 and 8:15. I was really concerned that I was going to be late for my first class. It was at this point in the commute that I heard sirens. Lots and lots of sirens. There were 5 fire engines that were trying to work their way through the traffic and congestion of Jongno. Normally, the bus travels in it's own happy lane, and this helps the bus schedule remain fairly accurate. But the bus moved into normal traffic to accommodate the fire engines. Which was all well and good. However. The fire engines kept getting cut off by crazy taxi drivers who were dropping off and picking up passengers, so it still took them forever to get past where we were, as the bus driver is doing some serious braking/accelerating maneuvers in the rush hour traffic. 

I was standing in the bus, holding on for dear life, thinking about how to handle the potential lateness when I heard this sound and felt something warm on my leg. I looked down, and the old man who was sitting in front of me had decided to vomit all over everything. Including my leg and shoes. The bus was still fairly crowded, so I didn't have that many places to move to. The second spew mostly missed me, but I was caught in a little bit of splatter. By the third spew, I was able to move enough out of the way that I didn't get caught in anything.

At the next stop, a whole bunch of people got off the bus. I didn't have time to either go back and change clothes or to even get off of that bus and wait for the next one. So I had to spend the next 30 minutes on a bus that smelled of vomit, with wet and sticky pants legs, wondering what in the world I was going to do when I got to school.

I finally made it to school. I walked into my office building at 9:07, and my class was supposed to start at 9. I went to the nearest bathroom I could find and did my best to clean up. It looked much better, but I still smelled kinda funny. I dashed to my office, grabbed my books and ran to my first class. Normally, I really enjoy my Friday classes. The students are engaged and we have fun. But today they basically refused to talk. Both my writing and my speaking class remained painfully silent. Maybe it was the morose weather? Maybe it was the strange smell emanating from the front of the classroom... Who knows. But they were a most difficult lot to teach.

By the time noon rolled around, I was having a rather difficult time. I didn't have time to eat breakfast this morning, due to the unfortunate alarm clock incident, so I was rather hungry. I was getting a headache from the vomit odors that persistently clung to my pants and shoes. I had one more class that was supposed to go from 12-3, then I had a makeup Korean class from 3-5. I wasn't sure I could make it through all of them.

I went to my 12:00 class, and we went through some student presentations. After the presentations, I decided that the circumstances were extenuating enough that I was going to cancel the rest of the class and go home to change and shower. Thankfully, the bus ride home was uneventful, and I was able to rid myself of the lingering souvenirs of the morning.

I texted a couple of friends to see if anyone was interested in getting some dinner tonight, but they were all busy, so I was left to my own devices. I decided that I was going to be very brave and attempt to have a pizza delivered to my house. I went to the Pizza Hut website to see if I could figure it out. I found the place where you were supposed to register, but it didn't like my name and ID number. I'm not sure what was up with that. I got frustrated and decided to check out Papa John's. But there aren't any Papa John's around my apartment. Finally, I went to the Domino's website. Lo and behold, they had an English website! It was like the clouds had parted and revealed rays of sunshine.

I successfully registered for the website and downloaded the 11 (that isn't hyperbole, it was actually 11) pieces of software, plugins and add-ons that were required by the website to function (God bless Korean web design...) and placed my order. The website was in English, but the program that was necessary to pay with a credit card was all in Korean. I had to go through a long and complicated authentication process which involved secret words, text messages and emails, and I finally paid for my pizza.

A mere 25 minutes later, my doorbell rang and I was greeted by this:

Then I opened the box and saw this. It looked and smelled wonderful. I'm happy to report that it was just as delicious as it looked! I'd ordered it with extra cheese, so it was pretty similar to a real, American pizza!!

Of course, this was still a pizza order placed in Korea, so it came with garlic dipping sauce, two packets of hot sauce, and two containers of sweet pickle slices. All of which are still sitting on top of my oven awaiting a cold and lonely fate in my food recycling bin. 

All in all, it was a pretty trying day. I'm not entirely sure that I'm able to laugh about it just yet. But. I have officially added a new skill to my "living in Korea" list, and that's a pretty exciting thing!