petunia potter. (flowerless) wrote in vivo_iterum, @ 2012-02-04 20:29:00 |
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Petunia had had bad days before. Days where patients had vomited on her, days where she'd driven into town and then her automobile wouldn't start, days where Death Eaters were attacking. (And, of course, days where she'd been pulled from her life and plopped into the far-future surrounded by jackasses and crazy people.) But she could safely say that today had been the worst day of them all. It had started out normal; she'd gotten up, had breakfast with James, gone to work. Things had abruptly gone downhill from there. The family she cleaned for first, who she cleaned for every morning, was frustrated with her for some minor mix-up to do with how their dishes were arranged in the cupboards. She'd listened for twenty minutes while the woman of the house complained and showed her that they had to be put this way in not that way (Petunia had nodded along, but couldn't see the difference). The second flat she cleaned was a new one-- a flithy one. She swore she could still smell rotten eggs and the fish that had been hanging from the kitchen ceiling. The next few had been normal (wash dishes, take laundry to the laundromat, scrub floors), but then the last flat of the day was a terror. The woman, some uppity woman who worked for the government, had apparently had a mental breakdown of some sort. She'd taken a jar of tomato sauce and poured it down the front of Petunia's uniform, then thrown the jar at Petunia's back as the startled blonde had attempted to run. When Petunia had told the maid service she worked for, they'd shrugged and told her they wouldn't send her back there-- little victories, one would suppose--, but the other maids had rolled their eyes and whispered about how Petunia was "weak" and "lazy" and so on. So, the walk home that evening was less than enjoyable. The front of her dress was red from the sauce, and it stuck to her skin uncomfortably. Her side hurt from being hit with the jar. On her way home, she nearly slipped in a puddle of water (or what she hoped was water) and it felt like a minor sprain in her ankle. She'd nearly been run down by those mad steam automobiles when crossing the street, dropping her handbag and spilling everything. Several possibly important papers had flown away in the wind, she'd lost the cap to her one tube of lipstick, and her handbag was covered in some suspicious looking dirt. Oh, and at some point during the day she'd gotten something disturbingly sticky in her hair (gum? jam? who knew.). When she arrived home she found the lift was on the fritz-- or, rather, had just decided, right that moment, to go on the fritz because the universe hated Petunia-- and she had to walk up more than several flights of stairs. Worse, when she limped tiredly onto the seventh floor she saw that now the lift was working. Just when she no longer needed it. She shuffled into her and James' flat, closing the door behind her. She sank to the floor, her back against the door, with a quiet grumble of complaints that sounded a lot like "why me?" Slumping to her side, she was lying against the door in an awkward position, but she decided she'd just stay down on the floor for a while. If she attempted to take a shower, she was sure she'd slip and die. If she attempted to change clothes she'd probably impale herself on a hanger. If she attempted to start supper-- ha, yeah, no, if Petunia didn't die first she was going to order takeaway-- she'd probably burn the building down and kill everyone. |