Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Return to Sender

Whoever is out there with the Lindsay voo-doo doll, would you be so kind as to remove the pins and let me be?

Yesterday was a series of one clusterfuck followed by another clusterfuck. It started at 5:20 am when I went down to my car to head to Jeff's class and the car wouldn't start. Dead battery. D borrowed the car the other night and accidentally left some of the map lights on. Usually this wouldn't be a problem...I would use his car. On this particular morning, however, D was up and out of the house before 5 for some clandestine strike-related operative.

I trudged back upstairs, ate some breakfast and got ready to ride into work. Discover that none of my decent bike lights are working and that my period has started with a vengeance akin to biblical sulphuric rain. Decide to tempt fate, slap on one weak rear light and some ankle reflectors and ride like hell into downtown. I finish showering and realized that I have forgotten to pack underwear in my bag.

My first Americano ended up in the carpet in my office. I barely have time to grab the second before heading over for a full day of BPA settlement meetings. By noon, we are still on the first agenda item (of six). I compose, then erase, several emails threatening to quit my job if I ever have to sit in that meeting room ever again and listen to lawyers quibble for two hours about the difference between the terms "lawfully" and "authorized by law."

I spent the lunch hour trying to dry out my khaki pants in the ladies room after spilling an entire cup of hot tea on my crotch in the BPA cafeteria. The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful (other than an interesting incident involving being kicked out of a public meeting), and I left the meeting early in order to catch up with Beth and Jeff to ride.

The ride, amazingly enough, was also uneventful and I thought my luck had changed when by sunglasses survived being run over by Beth.

D was nice enough to pick up some jumper cables and was able to skip out of strike activity long enough to come over and help me jump the car. First, the cables aren't long enough. Second, turns out that Subarus won't go into neutral when the car won't turn over--unless you remove fifteen different panels and monkey with five other things with a screwdriver. Third, if you've left your key in the ignition when the battery completely goes dead, Subarus won't give you your key back. If I could have rolled that car off of the Fremont bridge, I would have done so last night.

Normally, all of this would be entertaining, but nothing is entertaining when you are off the charts hormonal and trying to get back on schedule after a week off. I went upstairs and broke my healthy eating streak--with two nasty beers and a half a pint of ice cream. Because the only thing better than being crabby and hormonal is being half-drunk, crabby and hormonal with a serious case of gas.

So my car is currently sitting in the garage with the key in the ignition. If you know where I live and would like to jump the thing and take it for a joy ride, knock yourself out. All I ask is that you leave behind the snazzy new bike pump I won at Starcrossed.

1 comment:

sbt said...

beautiful. have you read "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day"? one of my favorites as a child. you could write your own book!