The Worst Day Ever!

“Yesterday was the worst day of my life” – I have heard this every day, week, month, year for fifteen years. I became a psychologist to help. People don’t want help; they want someone to listen to them whine. They waltz into my office, tissue in hand, without even a "Hello, Dr. Carrie," because God forbid they be bothered to remember my last name, already bitching and moaning about how unfairly the world has treated them.

Whom do I tell about my worst day ever? I can’t go to a psychologist. I’d know he’d be wishing for me to quit bellyaching and ask how he was for a change. Friends? Forget it. I'm their free listening board. Smile and nod, smile and nod -- it's become a mantra I hate, but that is more than necessary in my life.

In a desperate attempt to keep from turning cynical, which obviously I'm failing miserably at, I journal. Nobody reads it, not even me. It’s my venting. It’s my rant. The computer is my psychologist that smiles, nods, and says, "Carrie, how does that really make you feel?”

Yesterday was the worst day of my life, because it was Tina Damon’s, Mrs. Downing’s, and Mr. Cayhill’s worst days ever. Apparently, my secretary missed the memo etched into her desk to never schedule these whackos on the same day. Oops, I meant patients. I would love to say I like all my patients, but I don’t. In fact if the world were on fire except for a tiny island that had all the luxuries I could imagine, but the condition was I had to spend eternity with these three people - - I would jump into the fire with a smile singing “Burn, Baby, Burn” while doing the disco.

Enter the first whiner: Miss Tina Damon. She is a twenty-three-year-old spoiled brat (it’s a professional term) who has issues accepting she is an adult and her actions have consequences, that is when Daddy doesn’t bail her out. She comes in late, crying her eyes out, slamming her cell phone.

“I am having the worst day ever! Everything was great until five minutes ago when I pulled in this overcrowded parking lot. Honestly, where do all these cars come from? This many people cannot have a need to see a dumb shrink!” she sobs. “And Daddy won’t even listen to me. He said I have to do what I think is right. He’s not going to bail me out. I didn’t mean to hit that car. It wasn’t my fault. Honestly, I didn’t even see it. It shouldn’t be my fault then, right?”

She hasn’t even made eye contact with me. She’s just pacing and ranting, as usual. I do my job; I nod and sympathetically smile. I’m sure no one was hurt or “Daddy” wouldn’t have made her deal with it. I try to focus on what she is saying.

“I’ll show him. I’m going to do the wrong thing. I’m going to do what’s best for me. After all he shouldn’t have let my insurance slip. And this society is about looking out for number one. Sure, I should leave a note. But I’m not going to. This is confidential, right?”

I nod.

She continues, “Plus what kind of person drives an Acura? They will be glad to get rid of that piece of crap. I did them a favor.”

Hold the phone! I drive a crappy Acura. What do I do now? They didn’t teach this in ethics. Instinct tells me to grab her skinny neck and choke the money out of her. Instead I continue to smile and nod while I draw a picture of her head caught in the window of my Acura.

As Tina leaves feeling empowered to screw the world over in the name of all that is self-centered and self-serving, Mrs. Downing enters reminding me of an injured turtle. She grabs her usual pillow relaying her latest date catastrophe. Poor Mrs. Downing has had the worst day of her life. Lucky for me this date occurred this very morning. They met for coffee.

I am only half listening because part of me is wondering how smashed my car is, and the other part of me knows Mrs. Downing will never have a good date because since her divorce she hates men, except those in her own family. I resent Mrs. Downing tremendously. She dates all the time. She’s in her late fifties, resembles the Pillsbury dough boy, and quite honestly doesn’t smell appealing. Somehow she manages to date, date, date. Yet our sessions are the reason I haven’t dated in three years. I’ve developed a fear the person I date will end up being related to her. I will somehow end up with one of her nephews who builds legos and dresses up in a $500 Darth Vader costume, yet borrows money to pay the gas bill. I realize it is an irrational fear, but the thought of a Downing Family Christmas makes me consider Judaism.

“He had the nerve to order coffee before I got there, and then I mistakenly called him Mr. Cayle, and he GROWLED at me that it was Cayhill! . I have never been talked to so rudely. He was a miserable man. . .”

Holy crap! She had a date with my next patient. She's right on the miserable part, but this is awkward. I can’t tell her because of confidentiality. I can’t shoo her out the back door. Mr. Cayhill is never late. I’m screwed.

She continues on and on; I hear nothing. I wait for the inevitable war, no doubt with me caught in the middle. As I open the door to the lobby, I feel like a child waiting for swats. It all hits at once, the screaming and bellowing.

"Why have you brought HER here!”

“Are you stalking me? Mr. CAYHILL?”

“Get her out of here.”

“Call 911!”

“I knew you were a psycho woman!”

“911, 911! He’s after me! Please, God, Please! I have family”

“I’m not after you, you old biddy! I pity your family.”

“Dr. Carrie, you heard him. He threatened my family. Good Lord, a stalker. I knew it.”

“Woman, I‘d rather stalk a truck load of infertile goats.”

It’s a blur, but somehow Mrs. Downing exited, and Mr. Cayhill ended up in my office, though not a happy camper. And, I had promised God that if he would make a xanax appear in my purse I would work at the homeless shelter every Saturday for the rest of my life. Obviously, he didn’t believe me.

“I ain’t talkin’ ‘til you choose between her or me,” Mr. Cayhill grumbles.

“Mr. Cayhill, you know I can’t do that. I won’t schedule you on the same day,” I reply sweetly even though I want to shake the childishness out of this sixty-two-year-old man.

He mumbles, “This is the worse day ever. I ain’t talkin’ ‘til you decide.”

Perhaps not so surprisingly, Mr. Cayhill comes to visit me weekly because he is lacking in communication skills. It has been the cause of his last three divorces. While I thought we had been making some progress, I cannot deny the evidence laughing in my face.

“You decided yet, woman?”

“Yes, Mr. Cayhill. I’ve decided I’d rather you not refer to me as woman. Professionally, I cannot choose between patients.”

“Ain’t talking.”

The child in me wants to scream, “Ha, ha, you just did!”

I sit in silence with a cranky old codger listening to the clock tick. I could have used psychology “tricks” to coax him, but if he wanted to be as stubborn as a mule, I’d let him be an ass.

An eternity later I walk him to the outside door to make sure Mrs. Downing isn’t waiting with a taser. I see my beloved Acura with a smashed in driver’s side door. Mr. Cayhill mutters some unpleasantries under his breath. I cheerfully say, “Have a nice day.” What I want to yell is, “This is my worst day ever!”


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