One of the books I used to read to my kids all the time was Alexander and the horrible terrible, no good very bad day by Judith Viorst. We loved Alexander especially Denise. The reason? Alexander was a middle child in constant tormented by his older and younger siblings.
I can recite it from memory: I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now ther is gum in my hair.....
I loved it because that house sounded like mine and I felt a little bit normal.
I read it every time a child came home with his heart broken over having a bad day.
Judith Viorst was proflic writer and you knew she was writing about her boys. I had Alexander, Anthony and Nicholas at most stages of the early years. I could pull out a book on almost anything and read about a smilar situation between her boys and my three.
Denise had a day where everything went wrong.
Denise left a pen in her new yellow shirt, I threw it in the washer thinking she had cleared her pockets, and well you know what happened. Yep a pretty blue circle on her yellow pocket of her good work shirt.
She just kind of looked at me and dumped it in the garbage. OOPs.
Someone tried to snatch her purse as she was crossing the street. She went to three car dealers none of whom wanted to play fair and because she was in a desperate situation, they took advantage.
She did finally get a car but she is thinking about taking it back.
other things in this 24 hour period:
She had two new people hired and only one showed up.
She had a cook call out.
She had to ask one of her cooks to bring her home because of her car, he charged her a hamburger.
She broke down twice in her old car.
There is a mysterious squeaking in the engine of her new used car.
Being a manager at Denny's is not always fun.
Poor Denise. Poor Alexander,
I am ordering the book from Amazon, I guess we still need it.
Alexander says: This has been a terrible, horrible no good very bad day, I think I'll move to Australia.
and his mom says: Some days are just like that:even in Australia,
And so they are Denise.
