我们都经历过那种什么事都不顺的日子。
We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong.
一天也许开始得不错，但突然之间一切似乎都失控了。
A day may begin well enough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control.
总是这样：大量事情偏偏同时选择在那一刻出错。
What invariably happens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely the same moment.
就好像是某一件微不足道的小事引发了一连串的连锁反应。
It is as if a single unimportant event set up a chain of reactions.
假设你正在做饭，同时还要看着孩子。
Let us suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time.
电话响了，这标志着一连串意料之外的灾难的开端。
The telephone rings and this marks the prelude to an unforeseen series of catastrophes.
就在你接电话的时候，孩子把桌布从桌子上扯了下来，摔碎了你最好的半套餐具，自己也在这过程中划伤了手。
While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the tablecloth off the table, smashing half your best crockery and cutting himself in the process.
你匆匆挂掉电话，去处理孩子、碎掉的餐具等一堆麻烦事。
You hang up hurriedly and attend to baby, crockery, etc.
与此同时，饭菜烧焦了。
Meanwhile, the meal gets burnt.
仿佛这一切还不足以把你逼哭，你丈夫偏偏在这时候回来了，出乎意料地还带了三位客人来吃饭。
As if this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives, unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.
事情有时会大规模地出差错，悉尼郊区帕拉马塔最近就有一批人亲身体验了这一点。
Things can go wrong on a big scale, as a number of people recently discovered in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney.
一天傍晚高峰时段，两辆汽车相撞，两名司机随即开始争吵。
During the rush hour one evening, two cars collided and both drivers began to argue.
紧随这两辆车后面的女司机，偏巧是个驾驶学员。
The woman immediately behind the two cars happened to be a learner.
她突然慌了神，把车停了下来。
She suddenly got into a panic and stopped her car.
这使得跟在她后面的司机猛踩了一脚刹车。
This made the driver following her brake hard.
他妻子坐在他旁边，手里抱着一个大蛋糕。
His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake.
当她向前猛扑的时候，蛋糕径直穿过挡风玻璃，落到了路面上。
As she was thrown forward, the cake went right through the windscreen and landed on the road.
一位正驾驶卡车驶近那辆车的司机，看到一块蛋糕在空中飞过，猛然间把车停了下来。
Seeing a cake flying through the air, a lorry driver who was drawing up alongside the car, pulled up all of a sudden.
那辆卡车装载着空啤酒瓶，数百个瓶子从车厢后部滑落，掉到了路面上。
The lorry was loaded with empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the vehicle and on to the road.
这又引发了一场激烈的争吵。与此同时，后面的车辆越堵越多。
This led to yet another angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind.
警察花了将近一个小时，才让交通重新畅通起来。
It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic on the move again.
在此期间，那名卡车司机不得不清扫数百个碎啤酒瓶。
In the meantime, the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles.
只有两只流浪狗从这场混乱中得到了好处，因为它们贪婪地吃掉了蛋糕剩下的部分。
Only two stray dogs benefited from all this confusion, for they greedily devoured what was left of the cake.
这不过是那种倒霉透顶的日子罢了！
It was just one of those days!