Monday started out bad and deteriorated so rapidly that I shouldn’t have been surprised that the day ended with the threat of total global annihilation.

Between first and second period the hoods locked me in my locker. I was in there for nearly twenty minutes before a passing custodian let me out but not until he’d delivered the obligatory lecture.

Then as I went into class, my math teacher stopped abruptly in the middle of his lecture and told the whole class to turn and look at me. He said that since I had disrupted the entire class with my tardiness I owed them all an apology and an explanation of why I was late, which, of course proved to be of great amusement to my fellow students. I would have liked to have pointed out to my teacher that the only reason there was a disruption of his class was because he stopped teaching in order to embarrass me but I knew how far that would get me. Probably to after-school detention.

Never believe things can’t get worse. At lunch I slipped on a slick of water in front of the whole cafeteria. My tray flew up in the air, and I ended up wearing most of my lunch. As was customary at Granite, everyone applauded. I ducked out of the lunchroom to clean the spaghetti sauce off my shirt. So not only did I get humiliated in front of the entire ninth grade but I didn’t have anything to eat either.

When I got home from school my mother was waiting to take Joel and me to see the dentist, who discovered three cavities in my molars, which prompted a ten-minute lecture on proper dental hygiene. We got home just in time for me to hop on my bike and ride to work.

When the universe has conspired to create the perfect, crappy day it only reasoned that I would be scheduled to work with Dean.

Around ten o’clock a wino stumbled in. Which, since the Queen was located just off State Street, was a fairly common occurrence. They usually just asked for a glass of water, grabbed a handful of soda crackers, then asked if we had any extra food lying around. Mr. Dick had made it very clear that we would be fired if we gave food to “hobos and other vagabonds.” “Give them food,” Mr. Dick said, “and those people will flock to the Queen like seagulls to a landfill.”

This man didn’t ask for anything. He was holding a brown bottle and staggering a little. I suppose he just wanted an audience. Dean and I had started closing. I was in the front wiping off counters while Dean mopped.

“Hey, buddy. You hear the news?” he said, a broad smile revealing gaps where his teeth were missing.

“What news?” Dean asked without looking up.

“This is the end.”

“The end of what?”