You know those days where you wake up and you just feel off? You’re tired despite having gotten enough sleep. You spill your coffee. You look in your closet and see nothing you want to wear. You struggle to adequately communicate with someone you’re trying to do business with. You sit down to do work but the thoughts just don’t flow. You drop your phone in some sort of liquid. You make coffee in hopes of combating the aforementioned tiredness and lack of flowy thoughts, only to spill it again. You get thrown under the bus in an e-mail by a colleague who’s copied in every one of your superiors. You’re late to every function you attend.

That was my Friday.

After all of that, I had a date to play bunco at an autism charity event with some girlfriends. They had gone to last year’s event, got drunk and had a grand ole time. I like alcohol. I’ve long wanted to play this female-bonding game called bunco. And Friday night is generally the one night of the week I don’t have to work. I was game.

I was dealing with the aftereffects of the thrown-under-the-bus e-mail the whole drive to the event and while others were mingling before bunco got going. I wanted to shut myself in the bathroom and cry, but I sucked it up, went for the red wine instead of the white (red does me in a little faster than white) and blew my entire week’s effort of eating well/losing weight on brownies and spoonfuls of pimento cheese slathered on thick, crusty bread.

I’d never played bunco, but as it turns out it’s a very brainless game. (I told a male colleague earlier in the day that I was going to be playing bunco, and his observation was, ‘Only women play that game, right?’ I hope brainless and women-only aren’t related in some way). You role three dice, hoping for a particular number to turn up or three of a kind. That’s pretty much it.

I won four out of the first six games. Beginner’s luck! Finally, something was going well for the day.

And then I lost. And lost. And lost. I lost an entire round of six games. Then I lost five more. I warned every new partner I encountered that I was bringing the bad luck. ‘No worries,’ they’d say. ‘I’ve been doing really well.’ And then we would proceed to lose. Badly.

Upon seeing my scorecard marked with Ls, the ladies in my final game informed me that there would be a prize for the biggest loser. I was a shoe-in! Until I won that game. Two other ladies and I tied for the most losses at 13 each. We had a roll off to see who would take home the prize. Lowest total was the biggest loser and, therefore, prize winner.

I rolled something like two 6s and a 5.

I could not even excel at being a loser yesterday.

Still, I had a good time despite the Cleveland Cavs-worthy losing streak. I tweeted my woes after I got home (to a house where the Modern Love Machine was already in bed). An old twitter friend told me it took a special skill to lose at bunco and that she loved me and thought I was brilliant. I don’t know what got into her, unless it was a lot of alcohol.

The prize was some sort of ugly vase, so I suppose it’s better to be loved and smart than to be lucky.