So You Think You’Re Having a Bad Day?: Four Stories to Make You Feel Better

By Matthew Braga

Bad days are just part of life. But for the characters highlighted in Matthew Bragas short story collection, their bad days are just a little bit worse.

A husband who wants nothing more than to reconnect with his wife after realizing their marriage is in a slump finally finishes a long-awaited backyard project, only to discover that no matter how much he thinks he knows, sometimes he is not in chargeor in control of anything. When a wife is ill in bed, her husband quietly creeps around the house hoping not to disturb her, but after they have a disastrous meeting in the bathroom, he heads outside where something unanticipated comes downright on her prized flower garden. When a couple moves into a new house, a stray cat soon makes it known that he is smarter than humans. Finally, a little boy who struggles with his difference discovers that he can do anything he wants if he has friendsand a good dream.

So You Think Youre Having a Bad Day? is a lighthearted collection of humorous vignettes with an important message that even the worst of days are survivable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475976663

Matthew Braga

Matthew Braga is a retired Navy Seabee who has been a construction manager for over ten years. He and his wife, and son, live in Virginia. This is his second book.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Matthew Braga.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4759-7665-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-7666-3 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902808

iUniverse rev. date: 03/07/2013

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Best of Intentions

One of Those Days

The Cat Came Back

Adventures with a Worry Wardt

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my wife for her support in the development of these stories and my mom for the drawings.

Introduction

My mom used to say, If you think you are having a bad day, call a relative. There is always someone worse off than you.

For the most part, she’s right. There have been many days when I’ve felt that no one would understand how I was feeling or know what I was going through. Then I would meet someone who just lost her job, or someone who just broke up with his girlfriend after finding out she had been cheating on him for the past year. Kind of puts my parking ticket out of the running.

Here are four stories of people who start off good, get caught up in … life, but come out of it okay and with a different point of view.

Enjoy.

The Best of Intentions

Acouple of months ago, my wife and I were in a slump, as I suppose happens in most marriages every once in a while. We tried to work our schedules to get the same night off so we could catch up on each other’s lives. My construction job would go for twelve to fourteen hours a day, so by the time I got home, she was already in bed. This went on for about a month, and then we realized we had the same Friday off.

We planned a romantic dinner for two in a nice, quiet family restaurant and hoped for a little our time after. We planned all of this through notes we’d been writing and leaving on the refrigerator. I had it all planned out: the flowers, the card, the wine. I even bought her favorite perfume.

Finally, Friday arrived. I had been looking forward to this for a long time. As the day progressed, I became happier and happier, to a point of almost being ecstatic. But thirty minutes before the end of the day, a main water line broke under the driveway to our construction site, along with the hopes of getting home on time. No matter how hard we worked to get things fixed, it just was not enough.

I finally got a moment to call my wife, already two hours late, and apologized. She said that she was going to get something to eat and do some thinking. Thinking? I thought. That does not sound good.

I got home about two hours after the phone call, and she was not at home. I walked into the kitchen, and on the refrigerator was a note:

Gone to Mom’s for the weekend. I’ll talk to you Sunday night.

My heart sank, along with the hopes of being with my wife. I took a beer from the refrigerator and sat at the dining-room table with my head in my hands. Suddenly, I thought that this would be a good time to finish one of my many started projects, something that we both could enjoy together. I grabbed my beer and headed for the garage. (One of the nice things about our home is that the neighbors are far enough away from us that we can make as much noise as we want without them hearing it.)

A few months before, I’d started a project that had to take a backseat: a gazebo with a hot tub. I had drawn up the plans myself and had all the wood already. I went out into the backyard with some floodlights and started digging holes for the corner poles. As I dug, I could not stop myself from smiling and feeling great anticipation for the final product.

After I got all the holes dug, I had to move all the wood out of the garage and into the backyard. I didn’t think I would ever get it all out, but as I carried out the last couple of pieces, I imagined the completed project and could see people standing around, laughing and having a good time.

I shook off the daydream and started dropping posts into the holes. It was almost one in the morning