Saturday, October 5, 2013

If Grey Gardens Was About A Car

Anyone who as ever been in my car knows that there is a significant amount of flotsam and jetsam that accompanies me wherever I go.  Empty (or sometimes not so empty) Diet Coke cans.  A huge assortment of grocery store bags.  Sweaters.  Yarn.  The occassional strategically placed double point needle.

It's a mess.

Yesterday we had our big "all staff" day at work which just added to the chaos in Ruby (that's my car's name).  Along with the normal detritus in the back seat there was a huge black garbage bags with about 70 t-shirts in it.  On top of that was my shopping cart.  Because how do you schlep a big bag of t-shirts without a shopping cart?

On the way home I thought it would be a good idea to stop at Home Depot and pick up a plastic shelving unit for the storage locker in the basement that all of Brian's tools belong in.  So that was on top of the bag of tshirts and the shopping cart.

Since it was Friday, I had to stop and pick up wine on the way home.  I was happily tootling along with absolutely no ability to see out my back window or use the passengers side mirror when all of a sudden, out of the blue, the car starting shaking.  For a hot second I was sure that that the aliens were taking me (again).

It was just a flat tire.  And I was right around the corner from a gas station so I--slowly--worked my way over there.  For future reference, 10 past 5 on a Friday is not a good time to show up at a gas station with a flat tire.  There was only one mechanic still there and he was (I swear to God) already in his car.  He started to drive away but must have gone to Catholic school so he came back.

And he was pissed.

He said back up over there.  So I did.  Then he hollered at me because I almost hit the cones which I couldn't see (see above for details).   He asked if I had a spare which, of course, I did.

And then I remembered.  Have you ever read the book The Shining (it's not in the movie).  There's a whole thing at the end about remembering to "dump the boiler" and then the whole place blows sky high.  My remembering was not quite so dramatic.  I just remembered that there was an air conditioner in my trunk.

Yup.  An air conditioner.

Cranky young mechanic (righfully so) hauled the AC out of the trunk and got the spare.

Then he put it back.  Now, me being me and having a huge fear of being undercaffinated, had a 12 pack of soda in the trunk.  Which he hit with the AC.  Which singled out one particularly delicate can of soda.

Which blew up in his face.  Which made me start laughing insanely.

And that's when I realized that I should just put my bra on over my shirt, slap a turban on my head and call myself Little Edie.  Did I mention that I was already wearing a big huge plastic sequined bow ring and that half of my underwire was buried in the garbage in the ladies room at Concordia College (because you don't leave random underwires on the top of the garbage to freak other people out)?  And wearing a bra with only one underwire is the best way to end up walking in circles.  

But I digress.

Dude changed my tire and didn't charge me for it. 






P.S.  About the mention of being taken by aliens again--I don't mean that I was taken.  It's just that on more than occassion, I have thought I was being taken by aliens.  I think I watched too many alien movies when I was a kid.