Mabel's Beautiful Day

Mabel awoke on Saturday morning and yawned a great big yawn and stretched a great big stretch. She gazed lovingly at the sunlight streaming in through her bedroom window and exclaimed, “Oh, what a beautiful day today is going to be!”

And then Mabel fell out of bed.

Mabel put on her favorite mint green shirt with lavender flowers all over it. She stepped into her favorite polka-dotted underwear. She slid into her favorite pink and orange striped pants. Mabel looked at herself in the mirror and grinned a wonderful grin. She said to her reflection, “Oh, what a beautiful day today is going to be!”

And then Mabel tripped going down the stairs, ripped a big hole in the seat of her favorite pants, and knocked out her two front teeth.

Mabel went into the kitchen and poured herself a humungous glass of her very favorite watermelon prune juice. She filled the glass right up to the rim. Mabel very, very, VERY carefully began walking over to the kitchen table with her humungous glass of watermelon prune juice. She took little bitty, itsy-bitsy baby steps across the kitchen, being very careful not to spill even one drop of her favorite juice. As she inched herself across the room, she sang, ”Oh, what a beautiful day today is going to be!”

And then Mabel’s least favorite big brother opened the back door and let in her least favorite big dog who knocked her down flat on her back. He slurped up every last bit of her favorite juice from the floor.

Mabel picked herself up and took her best yellow cereal bowl with the big smiley face in the bottom of it out of the cupboard. She filled the bowl up to the tip-top with a whole box of her favorite triple-frosted, extra sugar-coated, fruit-flavor-blasted, stays-crunchy-till-the-cows-come-home cereal. She whistled a cheery good morning tune through the hole in her mouth where her two front teeth used to be. Mabel’s mother watched her dance over to the kitchen table to enjoy the biggest bowl of the best cereal in the whole world. Mabel sat down in her chair and told her mother, “Oh, what a beautiful day today is going to be!”

And then Mabel’s mother told her that all of the milk was gone and gave her a spinach and oat bran muffin to eat instead of her bowl of cereal.

Mabel stepped off of her front porch and skipped over to the brand new red sand box her Nana had given her the day before. She took off the cover and beamed with pride at the
gleaming white sand that had never, ever been played with before. As she bent down to kiss the cleanest, whitest, softest sand ever, she said, “Oh, what a beautiful day today is going to be.”

And then the cat walked into Mabel’s sand box and peed in the cleanest, whitest, softest sand ever.

That was it. Mabel just couldn’t take it anymore.

Mabel threw herself on the ground and she began to cry. Great big tears ran down her cheeks as she hollered and screamed things so loud and hateful that the old lady across the street with the broken hearing aid winced and covered her ears. Mabel’s face turned pink and then red and then purple and then blue as she cried longer and harder than anyone in the history of crying had ever done before.

In fact, Mabel cried so long and so hard that she didn’t even notice what her family was doing for her.

Mabel’s father began looking for a needle and thread in the hallway closet.

Mabel’s mother got in her car and headed toward the corner grocery store.

And Mabel’s least favorite big brother went into the shed to get a garbage bag and a shovel.

Eventually, time went by and the sun went down and the moon came up and the stars twinkled up in the night sky. Mabel had screamed so long that her voice was gone and she had cried so hard that her tear ducts were dry. She sat up and peered out through her red, swollen eyes at the cleanest, whitest, softest sand ever without cat pee in it.

Mabel struggled to her feet and stumbled across the yard into her house. There, at the bottom of her stairs, lay her favorite pink and orange striped pants without a gaping hole in the rear end.

Mabel shuffled into the kitchen just as her family was sitting down to dinner. She watched as her mother poured her a big glass of watermelon prune juice and a big smiley-faced bowl of the best cereal ever, with milk.

Mabel climbed into her chair and carefully studied her family. She grinned a big toothless grin and with all of the love in her heart she whispered, “Oh, what a beautiful day today was!”


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