第33课

旁白 neutral

We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong.

我们都经历过事事不顺的日子。

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A day may begin well enough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control.

一天也许开始得很好，但突然间一切似乎都失去了控制。

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What invariably happens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely the same moment.

事情总是这样，很多事情偏偏选择在同一时刻出错。

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It is as if a single unimportant event set up a chain of reactions.

仿佛一个微不足道的事件引发了一连串的连锁反应。

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Let us suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time.

假设你正在准备饭菜，同时还要照看婴儿。

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The telephone rings and this marks the prelude to an unforeseen series of catastrophes.

电话铃响了，这预示着一系列意想不到的灾难即将发生。

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While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the tablecloth off the table,

当你打电话的时候，婴儿把桌布从桌子上扯了下来，

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smashing half your best crockery and cutting himself in the process.

打碎了你一半最好的餐具，还把自己划伤了。

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You hang up hurriedly and attend to baby, crockery, etc.

你急忙挂断电话，去照看婴儿、餐具等。

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Meanwhile, the meal gets burnt.

与此同时，饭菜烧糊了。

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As if this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives, unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.

好像这些还不足以让你落泪，你的丈夫又回来了，出乎意料地带了三位客人来吃晚饭。

旁白 neutral

Things can go wrong on a big scale as a number of people recently discovered in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney.

事情也会大规模地出错，正如最近在悉尼郊区帕拉马塔的一些人所发现的那样。

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During the rush hour one evening two cars collided and both drivers began to argue.

一天晚上，在交通高峰期，两辆汽车相撞，两位司机开始争吵起来。

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The woman immediately behind the two cars happened to be a learner.

紧跟在两辆车后面的一位女士碰巧是位新手司机。

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She suddenly got into a panic and stopped her car.

她突然惊慌失措，把车停了下来。

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This made the driver following her brake hard.

这使得跟在她后面的司机猛踩刹车。

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His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake.

他的妻子坐在他旁边，手里拿着一个大蛋糕。

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As she was thrown forward,

当她向前扑去时，

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the cake went right through the windscreen and landed on the road.

蛋糕直接穿过挡风玻璃，落在了路上。

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Seeing a cake flying through the air,

看到一个蛋糕飞过空中，

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a lorry driver who was drawing up alongside the car, pulled up all of a sudden.

一位正把车开到汽车旁边的货车司机，突然把车停了下来。

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The lorry was loaded with empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the vehicle and on to the road.

货车上装满了空啤酒瓶，几百个瓶子从车后部滑落到路上。

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This led to yet another angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind.

This led to yet another angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind.

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It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic on the move again.

警察花了将近一个小时才让交通再次恢复通行。

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In the meantime, the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles.

与此同时，货车司机不得不清扫数百个碎瓶子。

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Only two stray dogs benefited from all this confusion, for they greedily devoured what was left of the cake.

只有两只流浪狗从这场混乱中受益，因为它们贪婪地吞食了剩下的蛋糕。

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It was just one of those days!

真是倒霉的一天！