The Price of Convenience

Mondays just shouldn't exist. Whoever invented them should be shot.

That is how I began to write last week about Mondays. Then Tuesday came and then Wednesday soon followed. Last week was literally the week from hell.

So Monday rolls around and as usual I am running a little behind. My car is parked on the street and during the time it took me to get ready, I checked on it about three times. Why check on my car you ask? Well they had been doing construction and I knew they would start again that morning as the wonderful sounds of screeching trucks replaced chirpy birds as my wake up call that morning. I also knew that because of this that it was more likely than not that they would be ticketing and that I was not interested in a ticket of any sort.

During the course of getting ready, I manage to check on my car two or three times. The final time, there is a ticket and so I figure at this point, why bother rushing any longer? I already have the ticket. Thankfully even though I was no longer in a rush, I was only five minutes away from walking out of the door as all I needed to do was brush my teeth.

Teeth brushed. Feeling clean. I don't check on my car again. Why would I need to? I walk out of my door and I walk out to a bare street. No car. My car is no longer there. Where the hell is my car? What the hell?! Seeing that I am always running behind, I need to be to work in five minutes and it will take me ten and now my car is gone!!! What the hell?! This is not the way to start off the week. Not at all. So my car has been ticketed and towed. Great.

So, I am freaking out, I see the guy down the street towing other cars and I am thinking oh how people must hate you tow truck man towing people's cars before ten. How does he sleep with himself at night? And why is it that plumbers and tow truck drivers never especially as stereotype would have it, and even from my limited experience with them, they are always unattractive with too big bellies and greased up hair and the crack that smiles back. Always with the crack hanging out daunting you, because this is the man who has taken you car away and you can't help but think about his personal hygiene and how disgusting that crack must be on the inside. How is it that not only do you have misfortune to have your car towed, but then it must also be by a Nasty McNast? Why is the tow truck driver never some hot guy or smoking chick? Pretty people can tow cars too. Can't they?

Nonetheless, I go up to my grease ball tow man and I feel bad talking poorly about him, because as my memory serves me, he was quite nice to me. He informed me that my car was not really towed, but that it was just around the corner. The story I told work, aka I did not go, was much better. That story had me running around, stuck at a friend's house, calling downtown for my car that they claimed to not have and then eventually I found out that it was around the corner, but honestly, if that man had not been out there towing other cars around the corner, then I would have gone through all those things. Instead, I went to the local convenience store, made a purchase walked outside, called my coworker and told him my story, minus the locating of the missing vehicle part and then proceeded to drive home.

I should have gone to work. That day was entirely unproductive. I didn't even nap. Television just mesmerized me. Stupid mush machine.

So Tuesday comes. I'm not thinking anything. I'm home. Haven't left since I got there the day after retrieving my car from around the corner. So I need to pick some things up from work before I make the commute that I hate to Niagara Falls. I make it to our Buffalo site and I'm late as usual, basically I won't be making it to Niagara Falls until closer to ten. I am supposed to be there around 8:30/9:00 a.m. How I'm not fired, I'm not quite sure, but am grateful for the confusion. Anyways. As I am leaving the Buffalo office and hop on the express way, all of a sudden I hear this noise that sounds like trouble and money falling out of my pocket into someone else's. So I drive to the nearest gas station and see that yes I do have a flat tire. God! Really? Again all before ten. What is happening? What am I being punished for? I don't even think I really did it!! You've got the wrong person!! '

As I try to put air in my tire, I realize that it is not only flat, but just ripped. The tire is old and worn like the elastic in a 5 year old pair of panties that happen to not only be aged, but your favorite as well. The tire is done. Really done. I am nearly in tears. Here we go. Luckily, I stopped at a gas station that was also a garage so I was able to get my tire fixed, but I know that this is going to cost me and now I am stranded. I want to go home and so I call my coworker. Instead of going home though, I figure that it is important for me to go to work and get some work done. I hate work. I hate that this is day two of car shenanigans. My car is not supposed to participate in shenans, just simply be witness to them. She is disappointing me.

So there is an even that we have to go to that day anyways and so my coworker drives us. Thank God that I didn't have to stay in the office. The day got even better when I gorged myself on this pizza that tasted like it was delivered straight from heaven. Yum. So the day is going better, until we leave of course. The battery life on my phone sucks and since I was on it all morning making phone calls and trying to play games to pass my time in the cold waiting for my ride, the battery is low. Luckily, there is an outlet relatively close to our table that we have. The unlucky news is that we make it all the way out to the car before I realize that I have left it plugged in. Genius.

I run back up the stairs, not even five minutes has passed and when I go to retrieve my buddy, my life, no where to be found. What the hell?! Not again. This happened to me once in London and by the grace of God, I managed to find it sitting on the railing of our apartments after it had rained and been sitting there for something like 2-3 days. That was seriously a blessing, but this, we are on a inner city college campus and if I saw a phone, well, no I wouldn't. That is just rude. People have everything in their phones. I'd turn it in. Whatever. I come downstairs and again frantically check my bag and the work bag for my missing phone. No dice. I tell my coworker to just take me home. We get two exits away from my house and there is a call. They found my phone!! Yay!!!

People, stop moving my things just around the corner! I am never going to look for them there. A lady saw my coworker leave our table and got nervous about my phone and handed it in to the directors of the event. Thank you for being so conscientious, but next time, just don't touch it! I will remember eventually.

So great. I am stuck at home again and because my car is at the shop, I have to leave when my mother leaves to get it. She leaves the house when I am just waking up. Not impressed with the way that things are going so far, but I manage and so I pay the people at the shop, he gives me a really good tire with a lifetime warranty- God knows I need it and so I am thinking good. Things are going to get better, but at the same time, I am thinking what is going to happen today. Monday and Tuesday were shit, what does Wednesday have in store?

I jinxed myself. I managed to get to work, get through the day, but the moment that I got into my car to go home that is when the trouble started. I thought it was all a joke. Nothing could possible go wrong three days in a row. Oh how I was mistaken. I didn't even go half a block, I was only able to make it out of the parking lot and past the first corner just before the expressway, my ticket home before my car started cussing me because of the monster under the hood eating away at her parts. I swear it was like the metal eating version of cookie monster going to town on the insides of my baby.

I am stuck on the side of the road in a high traffic area, five old men have come and tried to look at my car, my mother wants to leave me stranded and I am supposed to pick someone up from the airport in half an hour. I just don't' have time for this. I really really don't. So my mother comes, she is a bit cranky, I blame the school children she has to tame from 8:30-3 Mon-Fri. It is a thankless job. So she ends up leaving me in the end because this time my car is being towed, on purpose, and they need someone there when the tow truck comes to sign for the charges or whatever nonsense.

I am sitting in my car twiddling my thumbs, when a good friend calls, hears my situation, scoops me, takes me to the airport, drives both of us back to her place where we get a call from the tow driver about where am I, how long and he needs to take my car. Really? I know you do. She can't move on her own. So we throw stuff in her car and speed over to my baby and the guy isn't even done yet. So I sign my car away and realize that I am once again for the second time this week without a car. And it is only Wednesday. Oh the joys of car ownership.

The next day I took a personal mental health day. It was either that or kill myself. I decided sleeping in was better than sleeping forever.