Days of Ugliness

I had an Ugly Day today.

I consider this profoundly unfair, as I already suffered through an Ugly Day yesterday, but it looks like that maybe Ugly Days, like many things, come in threes.

For the perpetually beautiful (and thus ignorant) people who have never had one, an Ugly Day is when you get up and look in the mirror and something akin to the monosyllable, "BLEEEAAARGH!!!" bursts forth upon seeing your hideous visage.

Then you close your eyes for two seconds.

Then you crack one eye open, just to make sure that what you saw wasn't a sleep-deprivation-induced hallucination.

If you still look horrible, then yep, it's an Ugly Day.

It's a combination of factors- bad skin, bad hair, bad make-up, painful application of corrective lenses, your favourite top is in the wash...and all you want to do is hide under the covers and shout a muffled defiance at the world.

So I had one yesterday, but luckily all I had was Torts (where I sat right up the back by myself in a little huddle where no one could look upon me and be turned to stone, Medusa-like) and my Spanish cultural class, which is generally in a darkened theatre.

I then went home, where Dad was setting up digital set-top box #2.

Except he didn't have any spare RF cables. I found that a bit hard to believe, considering the jungle of cables he keeps around. And Dad being Dad, just said: "Why don't you go and get me one now?"

Two main things wrong with that:

1. I was having an Ugly Day
2. There's nothing more loser-ish than going into work WHEN YOU HAVE A DAY OFF

Except I didn't really want to explain to Dad that I was having an Ugly Day, because in my opinion, Ugly Days are a purely feminine concept, and men just don't get why you're hiding in the house with your trackies and ugg boots all day and hissing at the prospect of human contact. Plus, men just go out and get things done regardless of whether they look shit or not.

But after 40 minutes of discussion, we finally settled upon getting a 2.5m cable and some spare TV coax solder heads, just as backup. Plus, Dad agreed to teach me to strip and solder coaxial cable, and we still haven't tried out his newest toy, a temperature-controlled soldering station.

After a really nasty bout of Daphne v Foundation, in which the defendant, Revlon Flex, would not apply properly to the plaintiff's face without drying it out, I slunk off to work. Looking like someone had rubbed sand on my cheeks. If I'd been able to sue a semi-liquid inanimate object, I would have cited emotional trauma.

After the initial "What are you doing at work on YOUR DAY OFF?" from the girls, and after "giving shit" to my boss, as he likes to call it, I got the RF plugs and cable and went home. But not before browsing for some new glasses frames, which was even more humiliating, as 99% of the frames looked like they were attacking my face instead of helping my little eyeballs see clearly.

Oh, the horrors.

Not to worry, I thought. Because tomorrow is a new and exciting day!!!

To quote Borat...

...NOT.

I woke up this morning- actually, strike that, it was sometime in the afternoon- padded to the mirror, and internally, I screamed.

That stupid healing purple spot on my forehead had decided to reverse the healing process so it looked like someone had squashed a munted blueberry on my face and stuck it there for all posterity. To add insult to injury, it had somehow procreated overnight and so I had two matching companions for the damn thing on my left cheek, and oh, what I would've given to have Photoshopped my face right then at that moment.

OK, Daphne.

We are not going out today.

Luckily, it was 'Reading Week' for English at uni. Which is pretty stupid, because I only have TWO CONTACT HOURS a week for that subject, so I just don't understand why a Reading Week (read: Bludge Week) is required. Not that I'm complaining, because I got to stay home and bemoan Ugly Day #2.

I was making a pumpkin soup in the afternoon, and I'd got it all nice and blended and smooth when I realised that I was missing cream.

"Dad, I need cream. And we're out of milk."

"Why don't you go get some?"

"Because it's an Ugly Day."

"It's a beautiful day outside."

"No, I know the weather's nice. But I am having an ugly day. I refuse to go out."

(Dad didn't really have a response for that. Probably too befuddled as to the illogical workings of the teenage female mind. Plus he'd already commented on the hideousness of The Spot earlier in the afternoon, so he probably did understand.)

"Awwww come on Dad. I went and got your RF cable for you yesterday didn't I? Your turn."

So Dad went and fetched my cream and my milk, and that was that. I am currently holed up at home until soccer tonight, but all of my friends there have seen me at some stage in my little pink and blue bunny pyjamas and if that isn't a trial of friendship I don't know what is, so I never really feel self-conscious around them at all. It's quite liberating.

I even think that I radiate some kind of negative electromagnetic energy on Ugly Days, like Jack Black in Be Kind Rewind- my phone froze when I tried to answer a call and I had to hold down the off button until it blinked off, and the home PC froze up completely last night as well and had to be manually shut down.

Even technology doesn't like reflecting my face in its LCD screens.

Oh, and you know what was playing as I got into my car yesterday?

"Unpretty" by TLC.

And that, Ms Morissette, is irony.