First off, I’d like to say that I was on point last night. I actually surprised myself with how on point I actually was. And when I say this, I actually mean it – I was my own hero last night.
Casey, his girlfriend Seph and I end up at the Outer Marker last night. Now, you go to the Outer Marker to relax in an extremely nonthreatening environment. It’s definitely not where you go if you are looking to find a soul mate or to get laid, for that matter. The waitresses are all way past their prime, drink openly on the job and fall into the – rode hard, put up wet – category. The majority of the patrons are not much better. There is usually a sprinkling of decent-to-hot guys there, but you know it’s only because they thought it would be a cool place to check out, get there and realize it’s not where they’re gonna get laid and rotate out fairly quickly. The other 95% of the patrons are all older men; men my dads age and up.
Our positioning in the bar was not meant to be strategic, but rather dumb luck that ended up resulting in one funny story after another. I suggested we shoot a little pool and the table that was open and most convenient was the one that everyone in the bar had to pass to get to the bathrooms. That lent for the guys who never would have approached us in any other bar on any other day to have a reason to talk to us while on the way to the bathroom. And let me tell you, that’s exactly what happened.
I’ll just pick a few of the more entertaining encounters…
>> Encounter One: Creepy Dude <<
Short, fat, balding, sweating profusely, roughly 48 years old.
He walks up as if he’s going to the bathroom and he makes eye-contact with me. I immediately knew that our eye-contact was an inadvertent approval on my part for him to strike up a conversation with me. Which, he did…
Him – I’ve been watching you and your friend for the last hour or so and you two haven’t moved. Are you not having fun?
Me – We’ve been shooting pool, what are you talking about we haven’t moved?
Him – Seriously, I’ve watched you for the last hour or so and I swear you two just don’t look like you’re having any fun.
Me – Wait a minute, you’ve been watching us for the last hour? I have to tell you man, that makes you a bit creepy.
Him – I’m not creepy… I’m…
I put my finger up so as to say one second, lean over to Seph and say…
Watch this, all creepy dudes who get called out on being creepy try and say that they aren’t creepy but that they’re…
AND I SHIT YOU NOT… at the exact same time that I get to that part in my statement, this guy starts talking again and in unison we both say…
Me – He’s gonna tell us he’s not creepy he’s…
Him – I’m not creepy, I’m more…
TOGETHER – Observant.
Then, I laughed. Really hard. Like the kinda laugh that you do when someone gets to the punch line of a joke that you thought was gonna be totally gay and then for some strange reason it made a 90 degree turn to hilarious. Yeah, exactly like that.
All he was wearing in that moment was a look of bewilderment as he physically felt his confidence float away. It was unfortunate really, because I’m not all that clever but like I said before – I was on point last night.
Him – No, I mean, I have just passed by here twice already and I just made an observation and wanted to make sure you were having fun.
Me – I don’t know what’s worse… that you have been staring at us for over an hour and that’s a bit creepy OR the fact that you have crossed by here twice and I didn’t even notice you.
Fine, my last statement was a bit shitty, but this guy had taken a step into my personal bubble, put his hand on my shoulder and was about to explain in drunken detail why he’s harmless and just observant. I was out on it and the last thing I said to him, made him prioritize going to the bathroom over convincing me of anything.
Angela: 1:0
Rejected Old Dude: 0:1
>> Encounter Two: I’m a Pool Shark <<
Tall, extremely overweight, red wine spilled on his white shirt, some weird gianormous growth that made him look like he had boobs on his stomach, gap in his unkempt teeth, roughly 52 years old.
So Pool Shark was watching us shoot pool for a few games. Then he did what any pool player who wants to play someone does and that’s to walk up and make a comment about the skill of the players. Generally, it’s a complimentary comment – sometimes shitty to rile a person up to be more motivated to play just to prove they’re good. The latter has a lower success ratio. This guy married the two tactics… unsuccessfully.
Him – You guys are pretty good. I was watching you guys play.
Me – You wanna play a game?
Him – I don’t play for anything less than ten-grand (and he was 100% serious).
Me – Are you kidding me? Who says that, first off? And second, anyone who throws that out there 2 sentences into a conversation while at a classy establishment like the Outer Marker, kinda falls into the douche bag category for me.
Him – I don’t care what you think of me. I could beat you playing left handed and I’m a righty.
Me – I could beat you playing with one handed.
(Now, I was truly talking shit at this point because he was annoying the shit out of me and I was already a few shots in and definitely should NOT have been making such bold statements. Oh yeah, and I suck shooting pool 1 handed – it would have been a massacre.)
Him – I paid my way through college taking money from people like you.
Me – I never said anything about playing for money. That was all you, man. I asked if you wanted to play a game on a dollar table with missing pieces and divots in the felt in a shit-hole dive bar. You know, for fun.
Him – That was your first mistake sweetheart. I don’t play for fun.
Me – Then why are you even over here? Did you think that you’d walk up say you only play for ten-grand and that I’d run out the ATM and say… let’s do this shit? And PS – I call bullshit on your shooting capabilities. Anyone who runs their mouth like you do deserves to lose what remaining teeth they have with the force of an on-coming right hook. Fortunately for you, you’re standing to my right and I’m too drunk to take a swing that would satiate my conviction of how truly annoying you really are.
And on that note… he mouthed something else shitty that I couldn’t make out and walked over to the bathroom, like that’s was his intention the whole time. He showed back up to our table mouthing a little later to which I was like – alright big guy… rack ‘em. Yeah, I lost. Which kinda sucked because #1 – I really wanted to beat the shit out of him but I only lost by 1 ball, so it wasn’t a massacre; #2 – Made all my previous shit talking nil and void; and #3 – I probably shouldn’t have been challenging people to pool at that point but rather throwing up the debauchery that I had consumed.
Angela: 1:1
Rejected Old Dude: 1:1
>> Encounter Three: Bill <<
Nice guy, tall, pleasant to be around, roughly 70 years old.
I’m leaning over the pool table, lining up yet another 8-ball shot that will win Seph and me yet another game against Casey. He’s eagerly waiting for me to miss the shot. I’m taking my time lining it up, relining it up, considering the table scratches and basically stalling. It was an easy shot… and I was clearly being dramatic followed by a horrible winner. When I backed up to look at the shot again, I backed-up into Bill. He was an old guy but nothing but smiles. So, I started talking to him.
Him – I bet you can’t make that shot.
Me – What do want to bet?
Him – I just bet you don’t make it.
Me – Oh, that’s no fun! What are you drinking?
Him – Crown.
Me – What’s your name?
Him – Bill.
Me – I’m Angela. I tell you what Bill, if I miss this shot, I will buy you a crown. If I make it, you will buy me a Miller Lite.
Him – Fair enough, but don’t miss!
And we shook on it. I stop screwing around and shoot it right in the pocket. Clean win. Perfection coupled with Redemption from the incident with Pool Shark. And Bill, a true man of his word, immediately flags down his waitress and orders me a Miller Lite. Then he tells his waitress that whatever I want tonight, to put it on his tab. I didn’t take him up on the offer, but I did decide that I’d do some harmless flirting. I figured I would be that bitch in a bar that took advantage of an old dude by just transferring my tab to him. However, if he offered… and ordered it from the waitress… then that was totally different. It’s not, but in that moment, it made me feel like less of a bitch.
And thus birthed Bill’s and my Outer Marker relationship.
Bill decided that Seph and I were school teachers. I didn’t even want to try to explain what an IT recruiter does so I said – Wow… you called it. I teach 3rd grade. Seph picked Kindergarten. I got a laugh.
During the course of the night, Bill would come over and say – Are you ready for another one? And my response (which got more and more belligerent as the night progressed) I’m always ready for another one, Bill!
Seriously, Bill was buying 5 to 6 shots per round – all Jagerbombs – and he easily bought 5 or 6 rounds. I’m actually not sure how many rounds he did buy because I lost count of how many of them I had actually taken. All I know is that Seph and Casey were gonna bail out and go to another bar, but when the drinks were flowing that resulted in me saying bye and be safe as we left Outer Marker at 2:30am. That’s right 30-minutes after the bar officially closed. I love the Outer Marker.
Funny part about Bill and I is that we both knew that it was never gonna happen between us. You know, he’s old… I’m not. Would never work really, no matter how many Jagerbombs and Miller Lites he bought me. But damn it Bill… I applaud you for trying!
Angela: 2:1
Rejected Old Dude: 1:2
>> Encounter Four: Bill’s Booty Call <<
Short little thing, dark hair – unnaturally dark for a lady her age, pissy, roughly 70 years old.
So there we are hanging out with our new best friend Bill when out of nowhere this little thing comes flying through, grabs Bill’s arm and says something shitty to him. The only thing I could really make out was…
Really Bill? Is this the shit you’re gonna pull…
I was standing to the left of Bill and this little fella had maneuvered in between us to bitch at Bill. And then he did the most amazing thing. He looked at me and said – can you believe her? To which I did not respond, but rather stood there wide-eyed kinda nervous about the situation at hand. Because if she turns out to be feisty, which she obviously was, and she hauls off and hits me… well, that puts me in an awkward position really.
I mean, I can’t a 70 year old tiny, yet hostile woman. Can I? Even if she hit me first? I don’t think that that’s appropriate. You know, it takes a lot to get kicked out of the Outer Marker, but getting kicked out for punching an old lady in the face really seemed like something that I did not want to add to my punch card (no pun intended). Furthermore, it’d be a fight over Bill. Shit, I was already 4-sheet to the wind. Someone cutting me off at that point wouldn’t have been a terribly horrible thing. Because lord knows, if you’d asked me, I was good to keep drinking even after the bar closed. But before it got to that point, she stormed off and went to the bathroom.
Me – Dude, is that your lady?
Him – No, a friend.
Me – A booty call?
Him – A friend.
Me – Friends don’t get mad like that and over this. They cheer you on.
And it was in that moment, when Bill smiled coyly at me, that I realized that Bill was a pimp. Go Bill. Wait… what does that mean in regards to me? I started to speculate that while my flirting was innocent, he was carefully calculating how much Jager it would take me to say yes to Viagra. And then as quickly as it had all started, it reached not fun anymore with a screeching halt.
His gal must’ve gone to the bathroom like a million times. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was old and had to go a lot, if she was just going so often to eye our group, or a combination of the two.
Either way… By that point Bill had moved on to Seph. I casually found myself in a game of pool pausing for the Jager shots. Bill and I didn’t talk much after that. Furthermore, it would now be Seph that was faced with punching a 70-year old lady. And while I was in semi-panic mode when it was me in the situation, I secretly decided it would be funny as shit if that happened. I was kinda rooting for it, actually. It didn’t.
Angela: 3:1
Rejected Old Dude: 1:3
AND FINALLY… I felt like since I witnessed this happen about 400x last night that I would at least devote a few lines to the bathrooms at the Outer Marker. I never thought that a swing door could be so hard to use. It was like people had forgotten how to use doors and furthermore forgotten how to read the words Men and Women.
You’d get guys that would walk up and stare at the two doors. Like you knew they were thinking – c’mon man… it’s 50/50… pick one… the odds are in your favor. And more often then not, that conclusion led to them heading towards the women’s bathroom. I can’t count how many people we stopped from going into the wrong bathroom.
Furthermore, the doors just push – in. But 90% of the time, they would try and push on the wrong side of the door, then attempt to press the other side, and nothing was working. Like they’re thinking – is this a trick door? No, silly me – it’s only a 1-staller and there’s someone using it. I’ll wait. PS – it’s not a 1-staller… there are 2 in there AND the door opens, if you’d… oh… I dunno – PUSH IT.
Bathroom Doors: 38:2
Drunk People: 2:38
Friday, September 18, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
one of those days...
Today has been one of those days where I wish I could have just slept through it.
On Saturday, I am going to Vegas. Before you get all excited and jealous of me, I am going with my mom on one of our annual mom/daughter trips. I suspect it’ll be the Vegas that I never do when I go with friends – shows, swimming pool, some light gambling and nothing to hip-happening. But it’s a vacation all the same… and I’ll take it.
Last night I was up and down all night feeling the oncomings of possible cold or maybe a sinus infection. This was unacceptable. Around 2am I finally decided that Nyquil was in order to cut the nonsense off at the pass and hopefully get to sleep.
Yeah, so taking Nyquil at 2am turned out to be a horrible idea. I mean sure… I fell asleep alright but it was the waking up part that was a bit sketchy. I would go so far as to say that I slept like a damn dream – sleeping deeply and satisfyingly. And by deeply I mean 2 things. First off, I slept with my arm over my head, what I am assuming to be all night. It was to the point that when I woke up this morning, I had the worst dead arm and was sure that due to lack of circulation, it would have to be amputated. Secondly, the apartment could have burned down around me and I wouldn’t have been the wiser. To further paint the picture – I slept through a minimum of 6 alarms.
Lesson of the day: Don’t take Nyquil after 10pm.
When I woke up, I felt like I was in college again; like I had binge drank the night before coupled with taking a slew of drugs that I forgot to ask what they were or what they’d do before I took them. (Oh those were the days.) And even though I woke up in my own bed, I hadn’t the foggiest of ideas of where I was or if I was even alone for that matter – which resulted in an unanswered ‘hello’ from me. It’s about that time that I realized that I was in my own apartment and alone. Whew… 2 down.
It was 9:40am and I had a team meeting at work at 10am. It so wasn’t in the cards for me to even attempt to make the meeting on time so I mustered up enough energy to log on to my work email and send out a note saying…
“Took Nyquil last night. Apparently I didn’t read the fine print on the directions. Manufactures Note: taking Nyquil after 10pm may result in successfully blocking out the entire world. Throwing on some clothes and heading that way – but it’s highly likely that I won’t make 10am exact for meeting.”
I pulled what little hair I have into a ponytail (which is not an attractive look for me), threw on what I am positive is the exact outfit I wore to work on Monday, tossed on some flops thinking I had heels in the car (which I didn’t) and headed out the door about 3 minutes and 45 seconds after I’d gathered my bearings on the world.
It’s not as if waking up late and missing a meeting was enough, but this ungodly rain just won’t stop. Somehow rain gives people permission to become more of an idiot then they already were on a normal day driving in normal morning traffic. Today was no exception. I am cruising along only to hit dead stopped traffic on the Tollway. That resulted in a second email…
“Yeah. Sitting in dead stopped traffic. Any hopes of me making the meeting, even a little late are off the table. Might as well not even bother waiting.”
As I am on my way to work, I hear my car making a familiar noise. The same one it made when the end result was me having a slight meltdown in the Honda Repair Shops waiting area full of other waiting customers.
Back in January, I had rear-ended a guy on the Tollway in rush hour traffic. Now while I am positively in love with my 2008 Honda Civic, anyone who’s had a Honda or has been in an accident with a Honda knows that they fold up like an accordion when even in a wreck going 5 miles an hour. I didn’t hit the guy all that hard, but the front of my car was jacked. His 1996 Toyota Carolla had a crack in the bumper and that was it. In my opinion, it was something that I wouldn’t even have fixed but this guy was taking things a little too seriously.
The accident happened next to one of the big tollbooths on the North Dallas Tollway and for some reason, cops had been posted up there pulling people over – for reasons I was never really sure of but won the not getting a ticket lottery and didn’t really care about their underlying reasoning for being there. But this guy that I hit was a total tool. He called out to the state trooper to come back and investigate the situation. Investigate the situation, I repeat. A cracked bumper – really?! Granted, I rear-ended the guy, it was my fault and I wasn’t putting up a fight. I was annoyed, but was out of my car with insurance in hand.
The trooper makes his way over to our cars and this guy goes ape-shit; and I am not even kidding you… over a crack that was barely noticeable on a 10+ year old car. Honestly, it coulda been there before I hit the guy… who knows. Anyhow, the guy tells me to stand by my car and that he’d talk to the trooper. Like he was effin in charge or something, but I wasn’t looking to go to jail (again) for an “accidental” assault on a cop or a random dude for that matter.
The trooper comes back to me and tells me that the guy was worried that my insurance wasn’t valid. What the hell?! He’s worried that my insurance isn’t good? Because I look like in my spare time I have a forgery State Farm Insurance Card set up in my apartment? So the trooper says he’s going to run my insurance and my plates to make sure everything is in order. It was on the only times that I told a cop and meant it – You won’t find anything. I’m not worried.
Everything checks out and I am legit, of course, but this dude just won’t let it go. He wants to file a report against me. I tell him, in front of the cop, that I am not going to contest the claim and that I will take full responsibility. It still wasn’t enough. He was insistent on making a claim. So I’m standing there talking to the cop to find out what him making a claim against me actually meant. And that’s when I learned something new about the law.
As it might be, if you rear-end a person, the cops are called and the person you hit wants to make a report – it’s standard protocol that not only the report is filed, but that I automatically get a ticket for tailgating… or what they call following too closely. I start running math in my head and get annoyed.
$250 deductible to fix my car.
$250 to pay a ticket for tailgating.
Car insurance going up $50+ a month for getting in an accident.
This had become a pain in the ass. The cop took one look at me and said something to the effect of – let me go talk to him and see what I can do. You’re not acting belligerent (another first), you’ve taken responsibility for this and so there’s no reason to make a report on it. Agreed. After 30 minutes of the two of them talking, the trooper comes back and tells me that he’s decided not to make a police report. No shit… what the eff for?
I make the claim on my car that night and the next day I take it to the Honda Body Shop for repairs. When I get it back a week-or-so later, it’s making this horrific noise. It was my speculation that when they repaired the front part of my car from the accident, they just didn’t do it right or something was rubbing against something else. But in my mind… it directly correlated to the rear-ending accident.
My car was making a high-pitched squealing noise. Like when you pull up to a light next a gelopi making that loud burst your eardrums pitch of my car sucks sound… yeah, that was me. But it wasn’t making the noise all the time and really it was only bad when I first started driving the car. After it heated up and I’d been driving for longer than 20 minutes, the noise disappeared.
Basically I ignored it until my car made the noise even when I was idling. Inevitably, every time I took it to Honda… it wouldn’t perform. Ran like a dream. Never made a peep. And I got the – wow, chicks shouldn’t have cars look from every Honda representative I encountered. I’d easily gone into Honda 5 times and all 5 times, they sent me away saying – bring it back when it’s making the noise. To which my response was – unless you plan on coming to diagnose this shit at my apt, it will never make the noise once I get it here because it’s warmed up by then. That came with an – I don’t do shit as a Honda Representative – shrug and they sent me on my way.
The 6th time, I was livid pissed by the time I got to Honda. I left work early, scheduled an appointment with them and got to Honda at 3pm. More than enough time for the car to cool and for them to find out what the hell was wrong with it. I sit and wait. And wait. And WAIT. The shop closes at 7pm and I am still sitting there with no car diagnosis at 6:30pm and not so much as a periodic update on what the situation is.
At 6:45pm this minimum wage reject with dreads running half way down his back comes in (to a still full waiting area) and tells me that they can hear nothing. My issue at that point, which I relayed in a calm manner, was this…
Me – Look, I have brought my car in to Honda like 6x and gotten no results. No answer. The noise has gotten progressively worse and all of you guys keep telling me that there is nothing wrong with my car and there blatantly is… I’m telling you there is. It has now officially gotten to the point that I am concerned and fear for my safety by driving this car out of here, yet again. Can you please see what you can do?
Him –Well you can leave the car here over night and we can check it out first thing tomorrow morning when it’s had more than enough time to cool off. Then we can diagnose it for you, hopefully. (PS – the hopefully comment at the end was in a condescending tone of – god, girls and cars… so stupid.)
It’s at this point, that my calm tone, lack of blood sugar and patience is wearing thin.
Me – Are you going to provide me with a car or am I supposed to sleep here?
Him – Did you bring another car?
Now… just that question alone should have gotten him punched directly in the face, but somehow I managed to pull myself together… kinda.
Me – *I flippantly and over-dramatically look around with my hands tossed out to my sides showing him I wasn’t hiding an imaginary 2nd car and driver anywhere in the vicinity and say (dripping with sarcasm)…* Yes. I drove 2 cars up here today. It was hard but I made it happen in case I ran into the expected incompetence that I run into every single time I come in here.
He stares at me for 30+ seconds really trying to make that statement fit into his world, until I break the silence.
Me – No, I don’t have another car. Are you kidding me?
Him – You can bring it back in 1st thing tomorrow and we can keep it until it makes the noise.
Me – And that fixes this problem, how? I have to take more time off work, to bring you my car to sit at Honda all day so that you can “hopefully” hear the noise? Dude, it’s the same problem we have now only it’ll be happening less then 12 hours from now. This is your solution?
Him – If we keep the car tonight and it diagnoses as something that is not covered under your warranty and we put you in a rent car, then you will have to pay for the rent car and $100 for the diagnosis.
He said something else after that… but I was in 100% belligerent mode at this point and thus my Honda meltdown ensued.
Me – *As loudly as possible so the other 10+ waiting people could hear what I was about to say, said… * So you mean to tell me that you are not going to do anything to help me? You mean to tell me that after I have brought my car into Honda 6+ times and the problem that you can’t locate which is getting progressively worse to the point where I fear my safety in this vehicle and you are going to let me walk out of here? That’s how you run a business? Is that what you are telling me?
Him – Uh, well… I don’t know what to tell you.
And then it happened… the lights dimmed and I prepared for the monologue portion…
Me – Well, you can walk your ass back to where you have cars just hanging around and lone me one until you figure out if it’s covered under my warranty or not. Just like you did the last time when you didn’t put my engine back together properly and it almost fell out of my car on the highway. Yeah, I coulda died. Or like the time that you guys forgot to put the oil cap back on after you’d changed it and damn near jacked up the car beyond use. Or how about the time that you…
I am at center stage. All eyes were on me. I have the complete and total attention of whoever was left in the waiting area and I am painting an awful image of the shoddy work they have done over-and-over again.
He cuts me off… to say he’s going to go see what he can do, turns on his heels and walks out. Good call, sir… good call. 7:45pm he returns and says they are going to give me a rental from Enterprise on them. Damn right they were.
Turns out that it was just the power steering and it was ultimately covered. But it was damn dramatic to actually make it happen. And I tell you all that to say, that this morning as I am running late, my brain still in a Nyquil fog, and am sitting in dead stopped traffic, I hear “the noise” and the thought of driving my car into a median was looking like a viable option.
I arrive to work at 11:15am and find a prime parking stop. I start to think that maybe things are going to turn around today, until I spotted him.
Dave. The 39-year old guy who works with the garage dater and asked me on a secret – behind my co-workers back – lunch (that we never went on thank god). You know it’s bad when I will do something in an attempt to avoid the garage dater and/or Dave for that matter. They, 100% of the time, provide a ridiculous blog as an end result of our encounters. But that’s exactly what I planned on doing – avoiding him.
I stand by my car where I can see him but he can’t see me and wait for him to finish smoking so he’d go back in and never even see me and furthermore we wouldn’t have to talk. He’s standing in front of the only entrance into the building, so it was just a waiting game that would last the length of a cigarette. Or so I thought. I wait, and wait and wait.
I started to get restless and had thoughts like – What the eff is he doing? Smoking a whole damn pack? Get done already. I’m so effin late and don’t want to deal with you. He’s moving towards the ashtray… he’s moving… he’s moving… mother effer… he’s lit another smoke. Damn it. This is one Mexican stand-off that I’m not gonna win. I lose. At life.
I decide that I will walk at a fast pace and mutter something like – I am so late as I rush by with an – oh, I didn’t see you – hi when he tries to stop me to talk. Didn’t work; mostly because as I walked fast, it caused me to become light headed. I was already a little light headed and woozy from my 2am bad decision.
Dear Nyquil,
You effin bastard. You’re officially on my shit list, right behind Honda and Subway.
-Angela
Aside: It seems that a majority of all bad decisions start around 2am. I was once arrested around 2am. I got held up at gunpoint in a questionable part of Louisiana around 2am. I ended up in the bed of a pickup truck headed to Nevada around 2am. Just to name a few… granted those all happened many, many years ago, but the theory holds true… nothing good happens after 2am.
He stops me to talk and I have no energy to fend him off and I really needed to sit down to let my head stop spinning. I tuned in and out until he made the statement…
Well, I have to go back to work. So lunch then… Tuesday next week, right?
I unconsciously say “right” and he scurries off.
Wait, what? Lunch? Was I even talking to him? I thought he was just droning on as I was waiting for my head to catch up with my body and for him to get done smoking 20 cigarettes. Apparently I was answering him. Or at the very least, I said I’d agreed to lunch on Tuesday. Which, I must have been on auto pilot with “yes” responses because I am not even back from Vegas on Tuesday at lunch time. Eh whatever.
I picked myself up and headed into the office. I went in through the back entrance to our office space to make 100% sure that I didn’t have to see anyone as I drag my sorry ass in about 3 hours late looking like I had a good time last night. When really, all I want to do is stare at the wall for 6 hours until this Nyquil crap expels itself from my very being.
It’s 1:20pm now… and I have been totally useless. Today has been one of those days where I wish I could have just slept through it.
... but instead, I'll just blog about it.
On Saturday, I am going to Vegas. Before you get all excited and jealous of me, I am going with my mom on one of our annual mom/daughter trips. I suspect it’ll be the Vegas that I never do when I go with friends – shows, swimming pool, some light gambling and nothing to hip-happening. But it’s a vacation all the same… and I’ll take it.
Last night I was up and down all night feeling the oncomings of possible cold or maybe a sinus infection. This was unacceptable. Around 2am I finally decided that Nyquil was in order to cut the nonsense off at the pass and hopefully get to sleep.
Yeah, so taking Nyquil at 2am turned out to be a horrible idea. I mean sure… I fell asleep alright but it was the waking up part that was a bit sketchy. I would go so far as to say that I slept like a damn dream – sleeping deeply and satisfyingly. And by deeply I mean 2 things. First off, I slept with my arm over my head, what I am assuming to be all night. It was to the point that when I woke up this morning, I had the worst dead arm and was sure that due to lack of circulation, it would have to be amputated. Secondly, the apartment could have burned down around me and I wouldn’t have been the wiser. To further paint the picture – I slept through a minimum of 6 alarms.
Lesson of the day: Don’t take Nyquil after 10pm.
When I woke up, I felt like I was in college again; like I had binge drank the night before coupled with taking a slew of drugs that I forgot to ask what they were or what they’d do before I took them. (Oh those were the days.) And even though I woke up in my own bed, I hadn’t the foggiest of ideas of where I was or if I was even alone for that matter – which resulted in an unanswered ‘hello’ from me. It’s about that time that I realized that I was in my own apartment and alone. Whew… 2 down.
It was 9:40am and I had a team meeting at work at 10am. It so wasn’t in the cards for me to even attempt to make the meeting on time so I mustered up enough energy to log on to my work email and send out a note saying…
“Took Nyquil last night. Apparently I didn’t read the fine print on the directions. Manufactures Note: taking Nyquil after 10pm may result in successfully blocking out the entire world. Throwing on some clothes and heading that way – but it’s highly likely that I won’t make 10am exact for meeting.”
I pulled what little hair I have into a ponytail (which is not an attractive look for me), threw on what I am positive is the exact outfit I wore to work on Monday, tossed on some flops thinking I had heels in the car (which I didn’t) and headed out the door about 3 minutes and 45 seconds after I’d gathered my bearings on the world.
It’s not as if waking up late and missing a meeting was enough, but this ungodly rain just won’t stop. Somehow rain gives people permission to become more of an idiot then they already were on a normal day driving in normal morning traffic. Today was no exception. I am cruising along only to hit dead stopped traffic on the Tollway. That resulted in a second email…
“Yeah. Sitting in dead stopped traffic. Any hopes of me making the meeting, even a little late are off the table. Might as well not even bother waiting.”
As I am on my way to work, I hear my car making a familiar noise. The same one it made when the end result was me having a slight meltdown in the Honda Repair Shops waiting area full of other waiting customers.
Back in January, I had rear-ended a guy on the Tollway in rush hour traffic. Now while I am positively in love with my 2008 Honda Civic, anyone who’s had a Honda or has been in an accident with a Honda knows that they fold up like an accordion when even in a wreck going 5 miles an hour. I didn’t hit the guy all that hard, but the front of my car was jacked. His 1996 Toyota Carolla had a crack in the bumper and that was it. In my opinion, it was something that I wouldn’t even have fixed but this guy was taking things a little too seriously.
The accident happened next to one of the big tollbooths on the North Dallas Tollway and for some reason, cops had been posted up there pulling people over – for reasons I was never really sure of but won the not getting a ticket lottery and didn’t really care about their underlying reasoning for being there. But this guy that I hit was a total tool. He called out to the state trooper to come back and investigate the situation. Investigate the situation, I repeat. A cracked bumper – really?! Granted, I rear-ended the guy, it was my fault and I wasn’t putting up a fight. I was annoyed, but was out of my car with insurance in hand.
The trooper makes his way over to our cars and this guy goes ape-shit; and I am not even kidding you… over a crack that was barely noticeable on a 10+ year old car. Honestly, it coulda been there before I hit the guy… who knows. Anyhow, the guy tells me to stand by my car and that he’d talk to the trooper. Like he was effin in charge or something, but I wasn’t looking to go to jail (again) for an “accidental” assault on a cop or a random dude for that matter.
The trooper comes back to me and tells me that the guy was worried that my insurance wasn’t valid. What the hell?! He’s worried that my insurance isn’t good? Because I look like in my spare time I have a forgery State Farm Insurance Card set up in my apartment? So the trooper says he’s going to run my insurance and my plates to make sure everything is in order. It was on the only times that I told a cop and meant it – You won’t find anything. I’m not worried.
Everything checks out and I am legit, of course, but this dude just won’t let it go. He wants to file a report against me. I tell him, in front of the cop, that I am not going to contest the claim and that I will take full responsibility. It still wasn’t enough. He was insistent on making a claim. So I’m standing there talking to the cop to find out what him making a claim against me actually meant. And that’s when I learned something new about the law.
As it might be, if you rear-end a person, the cops are called and the person you hit wants to make a report – it’s standard protocol that not only the report is filed, but that I automatically get a ticket for tailgating… or what they call following too closely. I start running math in my head and get annoyed.
$250 deductible to fix my car.
$250 to pay a ticket for tailgating.
Car insurance going up $50+ a month for getting in an accident.
This had become a pain in the ass. The cop took one look at me and said something to the effect of – let me go talk to him and see what I can do. You’re not acting belligerent (another first), you’ve taken responsibility for this and so there’s no reason to make a report on it. Agreed. After 30 minutes of the two of them talking, the trooper comes back and tells me that he’s decided not to make a police report. No shit… what the eff for?
I make the claim on my car that night and the next day I take it to the Honda Body Shop for repairs. When I get it back a week-or-so later, it’s making this horrific noise. It was my speculation that when they repaired the front part of my car from the accident, they just didn’t do it right or something was rubbing against something else. But in my mind… it directly correlated to the rear-ending accident.
My car was making a high-pitched squealing noise. Like when you pull up to a light next a gelopi making that loud burst your eardrums pitch of my car sucks sound… yeah, that was me. But it wasn’t making the noise all the time and really it was only bad when I first started driving the car. After it heated up and I’d been driving for longer than 20 minutes, the noise disappeared.
Basically I ignored it until my car made the noise even when I was idling. Inevitably, every time I took it to Honda… it wouldn’t perform. Ran like a dream. Never made a peep. And I got the – wow, chicks shouldn’t have cars look from every Honda representative I encountered. I’d easily gone into Honda 5 times and all 5 times, they sent me away saying – bring it back when it’s making the noise. To which my response was – unless you plan on coming to diagnose this shit at my apt, it will never make the noise once I get it here because it’s warmed up by then. That came with an – I don’t do shit as a Honda Representative – shrug and they sent me on my way.
The 6th time, I was livid pissed by the time I got to Honda. I left work early, scheduled an appointment with them and got to Honda at 3pm. More than enough time for the car to cool and for them to find out what the hell was wrong with it. I sit and wait. And wait. And WAIT. The shop closes at 7pm and I am still sitting there with no car diagnosis at 6:30pm and not so much as a periodic update on what the situation is.
At 6:45pm this minimum wage reject with dreads running half way down his back comes in (to a still full waiting area) and tells me that they can hear nothing. My issue at that point, which I relayed in a calm manner, was this…
Me – Look, I have brought my car in to Honda like 6x and gotten no results. No answer. The noise has gotten progressively worse and all of you guys keep telling me that there is nothing wrong with my car and there blatantly is… I’m telling you there is. It has now officially gotten to the point that I am concerned and fear for my safety by driving this car out of here, yet again. Can you please see what you can do?
Him –Well you can leave the car here over night and we can check it out first thing tomorrow morning when it’s had more than enough time to cool off. Then we can diagnose it for you, hopefully. (PS – the hopefully comment at the end was in a condescending tone of – god, girls and cars… so stupid.)
It’s at this point, that my calm tone, lack of blood sugar and patience is wearing thin.
Me – Are you going to provide me with a car or am I supposed to sleep here?
Him – Did you bring another car?
Now… just that question alone should have gotten him punched directly in the face, but somehow I managed to pull myself together… kinda.
Me – *I flippantly and over-dramatically look around with my hands tossed out to my sides showing him I wasn’t hiding an imaginary 2nd car and driver anywhere in the vicinity and say (dripping with sarcasm)…* Yes. I drove 2 cars up here today. It was hard but I made it happen in case I ran into the expected incompetence that I run into every single time I come in here.
He stares at me for 30+ seconds really trying to make that statement fit into his world, until I break the silence.
Me – No, I don’t have another car. Are you kidding me?
Him – You can bring it back in 1st thing tomorrow and we can keep it until it makes the noise.
Me – And that fixes this problem, how? I have to take more time off work, to bring you my car to sit at Honda all day so that you can “hopefully” hear the noise? Dude, it’s the same problem we have now only it’ll be happening less then 12 hours from now. This is your solution?
Him – If we keep the car tonight and it diagnoses as something that is not covered under your warranty and we put you in a rent car, then you will have to pay for the rent car and $100 for the diagnosis.
He said something else after that… but I was in 100% belligerent mode at this point and thus my Honda meltdown ensued.
Me – *As loudly as possible so the other 10+ waiting people could hear what I was about to say, said… * So you mean to tell me that you are not going to do anything to help me? You mean to tell me that after I have brought my car into Honda 6+ times and the problem that you can’t locate which is getting progressively worse to the point where I fear my safety in this vehicle and you are going to let me walk out of here? That’s how you run a business? Is that what you are telling me?
Him – Uh, well… I don’t know what to tell you.
And then it happened… the lights dimmed and I prepared for the monologue portion…
Me – Well, you can walk your ass back to where you have cars just hanging around and lone me one until you figure out if it’s covered under my warranty or not. Just like you did the last time when you didn’t put my engine back together properly and it almost fell out of my car on the highway. Yeah, I coulda died. Or like the time that you guys forgot to put the oil cap back on after you’d changed it and damn near jacked up the car beyond use. Or how about the time that you…
I am at center stage. All eyes were on me. I have the complete and total attention of whoever was left in the waiting area and I am painting an awful image of the shoddy work they have done over-and-over again.
He cuts me off… to say he’s going to go see what he can do, turns on his heels and walks out. Good call, sir… good call. 7:45pm he returns and says they are going to give me a rental from Enterprise on them. Damn right they were.
Turns out that it was just the power steering and it was ultimately covered. But it was damn dramatic to actually make it happen. And I tell you all that to say, that this morning as I am running late, my brain still in a Nyquil fog, and am sitting in dead stopped traffic, I hear “the noise” and the thought of driving my car into a median was looking like a viable option.
I arrive to work at 11:15am and find a prime parking stop. I start to think that maybe things are going to turn around today, until I spotted him.
Dave. The 39-year old guy who works with the garage dater and asked me on a secret – behind my co-workers back – lunch (that we never went on thank god). You know it’s bad when I will do something in an attempt to avoid the garage dater and/or Dave for that matter. They, 100% of the time, provide a ridiculous blog as an end result of our encounters. But that’s exactly what I planned on doing – avoiding him.
I stand by my car where I can see him but he can’t see me and wait for him to finish smoking so he’d go back in and never even see me and furthermore we wouldn’t have to talk. He’s standing in front of the only entrance into the building, so it was just a waiting game that would last the length of a cigarette. Or so I thought. I wait, and wait and wait.
I started to get restless and had thoughts like – What the eff is he doing? Smoking a whole damn pack? Get done already. I’m so effin late and don’t want to deal with you. He’s moving towards the ashtray… he’s moving… he’s moving… mother effer… he’s lit another smoke. Damn it. This is one Mexican stand-off that I’m not gonna win. I lose. At life.
I decide that I will walk at a fast pace and mutter something like – I am so late as I rush by with an – oh, I didn’t see you – hi when he tries to stop me to talk. Didn’t work; mostly because as I walked fast, it caused me to become light headed. I was already a little light headed and woozy from my 2am bad decision.
Dear Nyquil,
You effin bastard. You’re officially on my shit list, right behind Honda and Subway.
-Angela
Aside: It seems that a majority of all bad decisions start around 2am. I was once arrested around 2am. I got held up at gunpoint in a questionable part of Louisiana around 2am. I ended up in the bed of a pickup truck headed to Nevada around 2am. Just to name a few… granted those all happened many, many years ago, but the theory holds true… nothing good happens after 2am.
He stops me to talk and I have no energy to fend him off and I really needed to sit down to let my head stop spinning. I tuned in and out until he made the statement…
Well, I have to go back to work. So lunch then… Tuesday next week, right?
I unconsciously say “right” and he scurries off.
Wait, what? Lunch? Was I even talking to him? I thought he was just droning on as I was waiting for my head to catch up with my body and for him to get done smoking 20 cigarettes. Apparently I was answering him. Or at the very least, I said I’d agreed to lunch on Tuesday. Which, I must have been on auto pilot with “yes” responses because I am not even back from Vegas on Tuesday at lunch time. Eh whatever.
I picked myself up and headed into the office. I went in through the back entrance to our office space to make 100% sure that I didn’t have to see anyone as I drag my sorry ass in about 3 hours late looking like I had a good time last night. When really, all I want to do is stare at the wall for 6 hours until this Nyquil crap expels itself from my very being.
It’s 1:20pm now… and I have been totally useless. Today has been one of those days where I wish I could have just slept through it.
... but instead, I'll just blog about it.
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