It was Jim Davis’ comic creation fat cat Garfield that made me aware of the world’s dislike of Mondays during my formative years, but as time has passed I’ve come to appreciate the chubby orange one’s worldview. Particularly when your Monday goes as badly as mine has.

I thought I was over the bum-AIDS I’d been afflicted with for the last few days of last week and part of the weekend, and indeed most of the day passed without incident. On the way home, however, I was in a fair amount of pain and — again, I’m sorry to be sharing such revolting imagery when you may well be having your dinner or midnight snack — had to rush straight to the toilet when I got home for a fairly explosive session.

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS wasn’t quite enough to make my Monday a misery. Oh no; this morning our toilet decided to stop flushing, so even with full knowledge of the fact that I wouldn’t be able to easily dispose of my… product, I was sat there, disgusting myself, not wanting to contemplate the destruction I had left in my wake nor how I was going to set about making things right again. (Our interim solution until we fix the problem — which looks like a problem with the syphon, for any aspiring plumbers out there — is simply to throw buckets of water down the toilet. Retro.)

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS and our toilet failing to do anything resembling flushing normally wasn’t quite enough to make my Monday a misery. Oh no; my headphones broke, too. To be fair, they were only a cheap £10 JVC pair I picked up from Tesco several years ago, but they were comfortable, sounded good and had served me well for quite some time. Inexplicably, they chose to completely break as I removed them from my head as I arrived at work today, however; not just a simple “something popping out of where it should be, easily fixed” break, either — this was a proper big chunk breaking off and promptly disappearing somewhere on the floor, not that it would have done me much good to retrieve it anyway.

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS, our toilet failing to do anything resembling flushing and my headphones breaking wasn’t quite enough to make my Monday a misery. Oh no; the lanyard that holds my work ID card and keys broke, too. I don’t even know how this happened, but again, a bit just fell off, disappeared and was consequently unfixable. (Fortunately, I happened to have a spare.)

Of course, the return of bum-AIDS… are you getting the picture yet? The rubbishness just kept coming and coming and coming until by the time I got home and had finished my business I was left feeling utterly defeated by the day.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. But right now, I’m not holding my breath. Except when I walk past the toilet.