36 Hours

Brian was having one seriously shitty day. When he woke up and saw that it was raining he knew there would be trouble. He cut himself shaving, burned himself while trying to make some coffee, and discovered that the cleaning lady had forgotten his dry cleaning, meaning he had no clean suit to wear to work. Luckily he didn't have a client meeting so he wasn't required to be really dressed up. He slipped on one of his sweaters and a pair of slacks, grabbed his jacket and briefcase and headed out.

As he was walking out the door, someone was coming in trying to get out of the rain. The person, Brian couldn't tell who, ran into him, causing his briefcase to hit the corner, that caused it to fly open and all of his files went flying, landing on the wet ground and getting rained on. Once he finally got them into his briefcase he cursed, knowing the briefcase was now ruined too. The Jeep wouldn't start meaning he had to catch a cab, which meant that he had to stand out in the rain until he could find one.

By the time he got to the diner to meet the guys for breakfast he was soaked to the bone and freezing. He was also about twenty minutes late so everyone had already gone off to work. He sat at the counter and Debbie came over.

"You look like a drowned rat."

"I feel like one. Can I just get some coffee, please?" She nodded and poured him a cup. As she turned to put the pot back, somehow she managed to accidentally knock the mug over, dumping the steaming coffee in Brian's lap.

"HOLY FUCK!" he yelled as he stood up, trying to wipe the coffee out of his lap.

Debbie was trying hard not to laugh as she tossed him a towel then grabbed another one to clean up the counter. "I'm sorry, Brian."

"Fuck it; I'll get coffee at work." He grabbed his stuff and started to walk out, getting splashed by a passing car just as he walked out the door. When he finally got to work he was an hour and a half late. The cab driver had dropped him off a block away from his building. After paying the man, with no tip, he had to walk the rest of the way, in the rain. Brian didn't think it was possible for him to get even wetter than he already was, but somehow he managed it.

"My goodness, Boss, what happened to you?" Cynthia asked as he sloshed passed her. Brian simply grumbled something and headed into his office. He remembered that he kept a spare pair of pants in his office for emergencies, but that wouldn't get him a clean and dry shirt. He sighed and set his briefcase down on the coffee table, then went to take a seat. Things were not going any better since his chair decided to take that moment to break, causing him to topple backwards, hitting his head on the windowsill on his way down.

"FUCK!" could be heard echoing down the halls and Cynthia came running in, trying to keep her laughter in check as she caught sight of Brian, sprawled out on the floor.

"Are you okay?" she asked with a slight snicker.

"I'm glad you think this is so fucking funny!" he said angrily as he got up, his hand immediately going to the back of his head.

"I'm sorry."

"Whatever. Just get me some dry clothes and a towel, okay?" She nodded and went about her task. That's when Vance walked in the office.

"You look like you've been having a bad day," he said matter of factly.

"Gee, what was your first clue?" Brian's voice was positively oozing sarcasm.

"Well, it's about to get even better. The Old Pitt people have suddenly decided they don't like the current campaign and want knew ideas by five o'clock or they are going somewhere else." Brian sighed and nodded. Coming up with something by five wouldn't be too hard. "I want the preliminaries on my desk by noon."

"What the fuck? Even I can't work that fast!" Brian looked at the clock to confirm that he only had about 2 and a half hours for that to happen.

"I think that mentioning your job is at stake might help you find the proper motivation." Vance said. He then turned and walked out the door without giving Brian a chance to comment. He sighed heavily, then tried to get to work. When Cynthia finally came back with the towel she mentioned that she couldn't find him any clean clothes to wear. He changed into the pants in his closet only to find that they had a huge stain on them.

"Fuck me; I forgot to switch the pants after the last time."

"Well, I can take these and have them laundered. Should be ready in about an hour. You can wear those until then." He nodded and went back to work, though he was sitting in his office in only a pair of pants. Cynthia ended up not getting back with his clothes until two hours later. She closed his office door so he could change as she left.

"FUCK!" once again echoed down the hall. She opened the door to see what was wrong and almost died laughing at the sight of Brian standing there in a sweater that had shrunk to about two sizes too small.

Somehow they had managed to get him into some presentable clothes just in time for the meeting. He had thrown together what he considered a piece of shit campaign but it was the best he could come up with under the circumstances. To his complete amazement the Old Pitt people actually liked it. As he sat there in the chair while everyone else started to clear out, he actually allowed himself a small smile. Maybe the day was getting a little brighter.

That theory was completely shot to hell when he got back to his office. He had completely forgotten that all of his files were soaked when he got to work. When he opened his briefcase all he found was a soggy mound of what looked like it used to be paper. Every bit of work that was in that briefcase would have to be redone and it had taken him six weeks to get it done in the first place. Luckily he still had a couple of months to make it up, or so he thought.

"Vance wants those files on his desk by next Friday," Cynthia said timidly as she walked in. Brian closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to remain calm. This meant that he would have to come in early every day and stay until at least eleven every night for the next week and a half, and he would have to spend his entire weekend working. The fact that it was the weekend of the leather ball did not help his mood any since he was now going to have to miss it to make up on all this.

The restaurant that he had ordered from got lost on the way to the building so his food was cold when it got there, and not only that, it wasn't his order. To top it all off, he’d left his checkbook at the loft, he was out of cash and they would not take his credit card. Cynthia had just enough cash on her to get him a bag of chips and a coke out of the break room vending machine. That would have to do until he could get home.

When he finally got home at about midnight he was absolutely starving. He put his key in the lock and noticed that it turned a bit too easily. It wasn't until he opened the door that he realized he had forgotten to set the alarm.

"FUCK!" echoed down Tremont Street as he looked around his once again empty loft. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" He was throwing a tantrum. One of the neighbors came up and asked him to please keep it down. He took several deep breaths, managing to get his anger under control. He called the police and they came to investigate.

When he was finally done talking to them he looked at the clock and it was four in the morning. He had exactly two hours that he could get some sleep before he had to wake up to get ready for work, which couldn't happen since he didn't have an alarm clock, or any clothes. So he sat on the couch watching the wall where his TV had once been, occasionally looking at his watch.

When six finally rolled around he gathered everything up, not even bothering to shower or shave or even brush his hair, and walked out into the rain that hadn't stopped from the day before. He finally caught a cab after being splashed about a hundred times. Luckily he hadn't missed the guys this time and Ted was more than willing to give him a ride, even though he was soaked and would ruin the upholstery. The elevator was broken so Brian had to take the stairs. Considering his office was on the fifteenth floor that was going to be a lot of fun.

When he finally got to the top he was out of breath and exhausted. He walked into his office and lay down on his couch, not even paying attention to who was in there. He had ignored Cynthia's warnings.

"Comfortable?" Vance asked. Brian jumped falling off the couch and landing on his tailbone, which caused a sharp pain to shoot up his spine. It took everything in him to keep from screaming. "Are those the clothes you were wearing yesterday?"

"I was robbed. They stole my fucking clothes. This is all I have." Vance simply nodded.

"I'm afraid you'll have to come up with something because the Shellman people want to meet with us in an hour." Brian just sighed heavily and nodded, having resigned himself to having yet another shitty day. He and Cynthia managed to throw together a relatively decent suit in a short amount of time. He made it to the meeting right on time and was forced to sit through a lot of whining and nonsense that ended up with him talking them into going with the same campaign they were currently running.

When he got to his office there were about a million messages, one of which being from his building super. Apparently one of the residents had been driving too fast, slammed on the brakes and slid on the wet roads, running right into the Jeep and effectively totaling it. To make matters worse, the driver of the car was coming back to get the paperwork needed to renew their insurance policy which expired the day before.

"Can my day possibly get any worse?" Brian asked as he leaned back in his chair. Having forgotten that it was broken he took yet another tumble, once again hitting his head on the windowsill. Just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, Cynthia poked her head into his office.

"Brian?" she asked, since he was currently hidden behind his desk.

"What?!" he asked angrily.

"Your mother's on line one." The last thing anyone heard as Cynthia shut the door was a string of curses that would have made a sailor blush.
 

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