She should have known today was a bad day. A Very Bad Day, at that. Over the twenty-odd years that she was alive, she had compiled a mental list of what made a bad day. One bad factor was ordinary, two factors were reasonable, three were bearable, and any more than that meant a trip to the chocolate store.

Rain was the most common bad factor. She had broken her leg once on a rainy day. She was fired from her teenage part-time job on a rainy day (it wasn't her fault her uniform got wet!). She was kicked out from her last apartment on a rainy day. Rain naturally made her gloomy, she had decided. She tried once not to be gloomy, watching comedies, reading the funnies, prancing around the house and laughing out loud for no reason at all.

Her television set busted from an electrical surge, the windows blew open and the newspapers flew out, she slipped on the shiny marble floor and sprained her ankle, and she choked on her own saliva. No, she wasn't that clumsy, but after all it was a Rainy Day and thus considered a Bad Day. And Bad Things happen on Bad Days.

Today fit many of the "bad day" descriptions to a perfect T. Rain, check. Broken-down car, check. Wet clothes, check. Idiot boss, check. Forgetfulness, check. Falling off a building...hold on, what?

After today, Elise Lynn Wood would have to revise her list of a Bad Day.