2003-09-04 - 11:56 a.m.

Now, with the baby stuff out of the way we can get back to talking about ME.

Yesterday was...I wanna say it sucked but it really didn't. It was just a day with enormous sucking potential.

I couldn't haul my wide load butt out of bed in the morning for anything because I had gotten next to no sleep the night before.

I kept think/dreaming about this guy I used to know and I just don't have any idea why, after all this time he would still be on my mind because he was not attractive in any useful way, not my type AT ALL, much to young for me (shut up every last one of you assholes) and really was just a blip on my radar.

I'm not gonna say who he was because if you didn't know him the name won't help you and if you did know him I'm embarassed to admit to this.

Anyway, I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking about the last time we talked on the phone and the last time he had his arms around me and how amazingly safe and warm and good all that felt even though he was NOTHING to me. This was many years ago. I haven't seen him, heard from him in forever and ever and ever. Nothing brought this up, it just showed up in the middle of the night and ruined what might have been a decent night's sleep.

So I finally get out of bed at nearly 10Am (that's 1/2 hour after I'm ~supposed~ to be at work) ((let's all pretend that anything in ~~ is italics so I don't have to spend extra money to make this shit all fancy for you okay? Okay.

I leave the house around 10:15, having showered the night before. I've found that showering at 10pm is the best possible thing to do because I can then listen to either Carson in the shower or Dr. Drew on love lines. Dr. Drew almost always wins because Carson, let's face it is a little dopey and plays crap music, but Dr. Drew is only interruped by the dumbest americans available talking about their sexual disfunction. Beat that.

Anywhoodle...I hop in my car after kissing all the various faces that say goodbye to me in the morning and I drive toward the place I get paid to show up at (work...I hesitate there).

I am trying to remain calm and focused in traffic. I am trying to ~not~ be homicidle in traffic. I'm losing the battle.

I turn onto my ~new~ road, my not so shortcut that I love. It takes about the same time but has fewer assholes and gets me to the place where Dobie is in a much better mood.

As I make the turn onto the road I hear a noise. A bad noise. The kind of noise your car makes when it comes apart at it's japanese seams.

Then I hear the noises a car makes when a tire is flat. And then my car starts behaving like a tire is flat.

I'm no fool. I know what to do. I drive past the service station for a mile or two to see if it's just the road.

That's how they get ya you know. They make the roads in front of service stations all wonkileedoo so that you think there's something wrong with your tires and you pull in and some guy named Troy comes out and mumbles some stuff and you leave with ~new~ tires and a bill for $400 out the EXIT which by the way was just paved with happy smooth road.

But a mile or two away must be owned by the service station as well because dang if it ain't still acting like the tire is flat.

So I pull over and get out of the car and look at all of my tires. The drivers side front tire looks a little low, it always does.It's because the driver is so fat.

Nothing really looks out of place. I look under the car to see if maybe a large stick or a pedestrian is caught under there.

Nope.

So I hop back in the car and start down the road. Still making funky noise. I stop at the next service station. I look for an air thingy. There is a full on garage here but that would be too easy, I just need a little air surely.

No air thingy.

I drive across the street. Another full on garage/gas station. Again, no air thingy. Again I ask for no help.

I also don't get gas. I'm nearly out, but what the heck, if you're going to explode, why have gas in the car?

So I shrug my shoulders and drive on.

I stop at a light and the car makes a sort of pop whoooosh. Then a rattle. I think, okay whatever was caught in the tire is out.

I drive a bit further and now the tires feel fine. I'm driving smoothly, all is right with the world. I turn the radio back up and continue on my merry way.

Flapataflapataaflapata.

NOW my tire is flat.

I cruise to a stop by the side of the road. I get out to look at the flat. It is indeed that drivers side tire, dastardly thing. I check the trunk to be certain that I am carrying with me a "good spare". I am.

Not "two good spare tires" like the Toby song suggests, just the one, but one is all I need. I guess.

I call those friendly bots over at roadside assistance. They are once again "VERY SORRY" to hear that I'm having problems. You want to know something, it's all well and good that they're so super polite and junk, but I'm sitting by the side of the road running up minutes and down battery time on my cell phone, I'm not all that interested in the long scripted pleasantries today.

So Liz, who is in Florida and so doesn't know whether I'm going east or west on 62 if I'm in Danvers and heading toward Beverly because obviously there are no computer mapping programs in Florida, is "VERY SORRY" to hear about my problems and that I don't know what direction I'm driving.

Liz is VERY DISTRESSED that I don't know what direction I'm heading. I explain to Liz that, first of all, she should calm down because after all, she's not the one by the side of the road, second of all I told her EXACTLY where I am on 62 and if the person looking for me is going the opposite direction I'm pretty sure they will still see me as I am not invisible in any direction that I am aware of currently, and THIRDLY and perhaps most importantly, if she would just give me a few seconds I'm walking back the quarter mile to the sign that says whether I"m going east or west.

Liz is relieved that I am walking back on a highway. You know (maybe) and I know (certainly) that 62 is no highway, but Liz doesn't know this. The fact that Liz is encouraging me to walk backwards on a highway tells me that Liz is not NEARLY as interested in my well being as her roboscript written by the out of work writers of the Stepford Wives and Danielle's weekend movie reviews would have you believe.

I am, in fact going east. Or would be, if I were going. Which I am, in fact, not.

What Liz doesn't know, because there's no way she could really, being in Florida where the technology is so far behind, is that I'm also DANGEROUSLY...DISTURBINGLY....HIDEOUSLY close to the Danvers Mental Hospital. Home of the Session 9 movie. (It had David Caruso in it for goodness sake, what if he's still lurking around???)

I'm having some apprehention about this. I"m having more apprehention about the fact that I'm running out of gas and cannot keep the air conditioner running.

Liz tells me that I will get the automatic call back telling me when my white knight will come driving up on his white horse and save me.

I wait 20 minutes for the callback. The callback tells me I am waiting for Robert Al's Garage out of a town I have never heard of. It also tells me that they will be there in an hour.

HOUR?

Okay. I must keep an eye on the traffic around me because I am afraid of people who would stop to ~help~ and then drag me off into the nearby woods and kill me.

One guy in a pickup stops and I tell him I'm all set. He seems friendly but you never can tell. That damn caruso could have all kinds of masks and costumes in his possession.

I sit with the windows rolled up trying not to fall asleep or die.

Two police cars pass. See me sitting in the car, hazard lights on, windows closed, car off, head lolling to the side. They drive on. Let the next shift deal with the D.B. in the hot corolla.

I make a few phone calls but no one is around.

I wait.

I take everything out of the trunk so white Knight can take out my "good spare".

I wait.

(by the way, if you look up "soups" in the samsclub website they will show you "Crabmeat Lump".)

An hour and 20 minutes goes by and my cellphone rings. "Hello is this is the automated system at your friendly insurance company office. According to our records your roadside assistance white knight should have ridden up on his white truck, fixed your boo boo, kissed your forehead, there there'd you and sent you on your merry way by now. If this has happened please press one. If this has NOT happened please press two so we can put you on hold until they show up so you can look like a moron."

I press two because I never want to pass up the opportunity to look like a moron to a computer in florida with no mapping program.

I wait an eternity because all of their droids are currently busy filing their gears. Finally a new droid pops on and says that they are VERY SORRY to hear that my roadside assistant white knight has not ridden up to lift and separate me yet and would I like them to call and find out where in the fuck they are?

Why yes, thank you.

Another eternity slips by and then I am informed that my white knight will be with me in 5 minutes.

Eight minutes later a truck, a WHITE truck pulls up behind me. It says "Allstars" on it. That's not the name of the company that's gonna come change my tire is it? Ah, screw it. If he wants to kill me in the woods let him.

He walks past my car and makes a comment about the dashboard boy (I'm not telling). I say I'm fickle and that it changes daily.

White Knight is thin, long haired, roadside guy in a dimly lit bar. He never takes the ciggarette from his mouth.

As he begins to work the screws on my tire a car moving in the WEST direction beeps furiously at him. (Proving my theory that a downed vehicle CAN be seen from both sides of the road). He turns to see the person driving this car and frantically FRANTICALLY motions for him to actually turn himself to the EAST BOUND LANE and stop to talk to him.

Now White Knight half heartedly works on the tire while taking long lingering glances to see if his friend is turning around.

Soon his friend does show up. There is a woman in his friend's truck. The woman stays in the truck, the friend comes over to talk to White Knight.

White Knight is so excited he throws away the ciggarette. Friend has on a white shirt and slacks. White knight wants to know why he's so dressed up. Friend says he just got married and then laughs like a maniac. I am about to congratulate friend but then he says to White Knight "It was a joke, it was for ...my mother had this thing, it was for the old people. I married this girl named Sue." It was very difficult to tell if he married Sue or not but I was thinking either way it was better than a Boy Named Sue.

White Knight asked if that was Mary in the truck and friend said it was. White Knight asked what friend was doing tonight, Friend didn't know. White Knight stood up and he and friend didn't say anything for awhile, just sort of pawed at the ground like two redneck gay boys who didn't know how to get on with the job of says "so are we gonna fuck tonight or what?"

Then friend mentioned that he saw White Knights significant other. She looks much better now that she's out...you know? Much better now that she's getting her life together, her head together. yeah, it's going okay.

Um. Hi, I'd like to get out of here today? So if you could just maybe, I dunno, put the fucking tire on the car and then discuss your love life? That would be great. You're a kitten. Thanks.

Friend wishes me luck. (!) and then drives away with Mary.

Eventually I have a tonka wheel on my car and white knight tells me not to drive over 45. I agree and leave. It's 1:30 pm.

I go to work for 30 seconds, to inform people that I'm NOT coming to work.

I go to the tire place that I love. Darrell, or Dwayne or whatever his name is, really cute boy, comes out and looks at my car. I say I probably need 4 new tires. He says, nah, just the one will do, the others are fine.

I say "are you sure? cause I'd love to stuff more cash in your toolbelt bigboy" and he says well, if you insist that tire right there could be replaced but it's still in good shape. I tell him that I have a rim at home that needs a tire and we decide to do two new tires and he'll give me my spare and the old decent tire to mount on my rim.

Mount...rim...oh my goodness.

He does all of this AND puts the old good tire in a plastic baggie so as not to dirty up my trunk for $131.58 I love this boy.

Then I did other junk. But now my fingers hurt from the typing...so maybe later for the other junk, though it was all pretty boring, except to say that I now I have MAJOR anxiety about driving past the Danvers Mental Hospital.

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