If at first you don't succeed, find a friend who gets it.

A few things.

First, I'm bending my own rules as to the content of this blog. I can do that. I tried posting things that make people laugh so that I could make people laugh but, you know, sometimes you just have to be there. So I've created an amendment that allows me to include happy stories, too.

Second, I realize that most of these funny stories are at my expense. I feel okay about it, if you're concerned.

On to bigger and better things. I'm not a fan of whining in general, some might even say it's my pet peeve, but regardless of how I feel about it, some days start out as a pain in the gluteals (if ya know what I mean) and then just go downhill from there. Yesterday was one of those days. I walked into class sucking air down into my throat in furious desperation (I'll tell you more about that in a second), plopped down next to my classmate who just looked at me. Like she knew. Like, in that moment, we were united in our misery. She knew about the stairs! The look in her eyes told me that, once again, she had tried to climb the 120 Quad stairs and once again they had defeated her!

We chatted for a bit about our own personal struggles, each one being worse than the one before. I told her I had just spilled coffee all over my shirt and pants. My one bright part of the day had come back to bite me in the rear (I mean, I don't even know how, I was just talking. It was like a baby momentarily invaded my body and spit up all over my last pair of fresh clothes). She told me she had run out of clean clothes to wear a week ago. I pulled our crumpled and ripped group paper out of my backpack and mumbled a brief apology, and she said, "I'M WEARING MY SHIRT BACKWARDS. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS." I was taken aback. I had never expected such a reaction, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew she was right. When you look down at that malicious little white square, you realize that today is the day you can't even succeed at dressing yourself and it's hard to focus on the good things in life.

That's all folks. Don't laugh at others' struggles, but laugh at how pitiful your own seem when your friend is wearing shirts backwards.

P.S. Is it weird that one of my biggest fears is spontaneously vomiting in class?

Manders