I am not a morning person. I am not really a night person either. Now that I think about it, I’m not really an any kind of day person. Therefore, when I have the kind of day where everything implodes in my face, my persona is verified by the onslaught of things going terribly wrong. Just last week, I was put through every obstacle in the book; it was like the world was telling me, “no Alex, not today” at every twist and turn in the course of my life.

The morning in question I just so happened to oversleep. I had about 20 minutes to get ready and get out the door in enough time to make it in for my shift as unfashionably late as possible. You already know I was looking like a hot mess that day. When I have a rough start in the morning, there is no hope that my appearance will gradually get better as the day progresses. I brushed my teeth, splashed my face, threw my hair in a messy bun, tossed on a hat, grabbed the coffee I forced my mother to prepare along with my lunch (it was like grade school all over again), and I whipped open the screen door ready to present my unkempt self to the world. As I was whipping open the screen door, I managed to pull the whole thing off the tracks and onto the deck. Because I now only had about 10 minutes to make it into work for the start of my shift, I struggled to pick the door up and ungracefully leaned it against the siding. My mom was thrilled.

My morning only proceeded to get worse from there. The day prior, I had noticed some obscure charges in my bank statement regarding my Squarespace account. It was just a few, and when this happened to me before, they were gone the next morning, so I didn’t bat an eye. Now, imagine my surprise when I checked my bank statement the next morning only to discover that I now had one hundred and forty dollars pending for Squarespace domains that I did not purchase.

Not only did I have to rush into work, but I also had to do some investigating on my account to find out who was purchasing websites with my information. I immediately checked my email – because I get notified every time a purchase is made with my card information – and I had seven emails each congratulating me on my newest venture into the World Wide Web.

Excuse me automated account management system at Squarespace, but I did not make these purchases. Now, each of these “websites” had the kind of name you’d expect a celebrity to choose as the focal point of their child’s birth certificate. They were ridiculous, and I wish I would have saved the congratulatory emails with the domain names on display.

I immediately cancelled all the pending domains, and here is where my ultimate confusion settles in. When I went to cancel all seven fraudulent sites, a notification popped up with a message that basically stated that these domains could not flourish into the mediocre sites I’m sure the hacker had planned because each domain needed email verification first. I then checked the account information for each site, and I was floored when each domain had all of my information down to the last number and letter. The only minor mistake this fresh out of the gate hacker made was that the verification email address was slightly off and did not match any of my other important information. However, emails were still being sent to my correct email address. I guess this method of verification was meant to test my spelling and keyboard skills, ultimately trying to prove that I am an idiot when it comes to spellcheck. Not today, hacker.

Because I was now at work and clearly not capable of calling the bank to report fraudulent charges, I asked my mother to take care of it for me. According to the bank, nothing could be done because the charges were pending and not complete purchases. So, I had to wait almost a week for all the charges to completely vanish from my bank statement. As a responsible young adult with very real bills, I had to make sure that my regularly scheduled payments would be able to come out as they normally do.

The best part of this portion of my day is that this was not the first time my Squarespace account has had mysterious charges. This was in fact the third occurrence, and every single time, it is the same selection of domain names and the same incorrect email address. How unoriginal could this hacker get? I’m going to have to create an identity for this character if it keeps trying to hack into my life.

While this was in fact a roadblock in my day and a wrench in my side, the true test of my patience occurred at the end of my shift. Of course, this just so happened to be one of those days where my campers were bouncing off the walls and ignoring every direction given to them - which is understandable at their age – but I was struggling for some piece of mind, and they were not providing it.

I had to close out camp that wonderful, wonderful day, and the last hyperactive child did not leave until about five thirty. As you all know, I work two jobs in the summer, and this was a day that I had to go right from one job to the next. My shift at job number two began at six on the dot, and I was already behind schedule. I raced back into the classroom, grabbed my change of clothes, and ran to the bathroom. I managed to change in record time and was about to put on the new floral top I purchased a few days prior when I realized that this moment topped even the great hacking incident of the day.

The sleeves on this shirt were so tight to my arm; they probably wouldn’t have even fit a child-sized bicep. I was furious because it was the only clean shirt I had, and I couldn’t go out to my car shirtless. I immediately called my mother and asked her to have a shirt at the ready because I now had fifteen minutes to drive home, put on a clean shirt, slap on some eyebrows, and make it to work.

I managed to make it to work right on time, and my eyebrows were not as bad as they could have been. I mean, I could have shaved a few minutes off my time by leaving my eyebrows in my makeup bag, but I decided it was best to leave the scaring to the scarecrows. All in all, this day was one for the books – clearly – and I got a blog post out of it so I’m not too irritated. I survived an unoriginal hacker and a shirt that didn’t fit, and it was all because I started my day off right, with a cup of coffee in my hand and my eyebrow pencil locked and loaded, waiting patiently to make over the hot mess who started her day with a bang … of the screen door on the deck.