August 17, 2006
Anatomy of a rotten day.
1. Wake up on the couch with a stiff neck because you fell asleep watching a movie the night before.
2. Find your recently repaired air conditioner broken.
3. Hear an awful grinding sound from one of your hard disks. Perhaps because the room is a thousand degrees without the air conditioner.
4. Haul 100 pound air conditioner down 4 flights of stairs into the car. Air conditioner leaks a sticky oily fluid all over your shirt.
5. Blow out a tire on the Gowanas Expressway in an area with construction and no shoulder. Look desperately for an exit. Drive on a rim throwing up showers of sparks. At some point it dawns on you that this is not wise. You stop.
6. Realize your aversion to cellphones is mighty inconvenient.
7. Abandon your car. Walk several hundred yards down the Gowanas Expressway with traffic whizzing by suffering occasional insults from passersby.
8. Be refused a phone in 7 or 8 businesses because you are drenched in sweat, covered in brown air conditioner grease, and looking wild eyed.
9. Walk back onto the Gowanas and back to your car as demanded by a tow truck operator named Joey who refuses to pick you up at the deli because he would have to go a few blocks out of his way. Arrive back at your car. Pray you won't be rear ended. Wait. Realize you should have picked up a drink at the deli. Argue with a cop who says he's going to have to tow you. When Joey finally arrives almost an hour later his tow truck is blasting a band named Malevolent Creation.
10. Discover you must replace both front tires at a cost of $670. Have the guys at the garage laugh when they give you the bill and say, "Oof. That one stings." One guy adds, "You know your brakes are totally shot. "
11. Arrive back to your sweltering airless office. Grab some things for a meeting in the city. Realize you left important papers from your car in the Joey's tow truck...
Should I continue?
Do over please.
to this site
08/17/06 08:30 AM
Nancy Fulton said...
my sincerest condolences for a horrid day.
Will this make you laugh ?---I hope so--
(excuses people made to the insurance company)
http://rinkworks.com/said/insurance.shtml
08/17/06 11:30 AM
KDunk said...
this is horrible. please don't continue.
08/17/06 07:52 PM
Jen Bekman said...
Oof. So so sorry. That's a stinker. On the bright side: tomorrow is bound to be better.
08/18/06 08:56 AM
jp said...
I too am feeling genuine sympathy for you, Raul, despite the fact that back in July of '92, in Pakistan, you found it terribly amusing when I temporarily lost my hearing and feared I might never regain it. But you were young and cruel back then, and schadenfreude comes so naturally to the young - it would be unfair to hold it against you. Far be it from me to suggest that karma had a hand in your dreadful day. But then again, what do I know?
08/18/06 12:13 PM
raul said...
You neglect to mention that said hearing loss came after shooting an RPG loaded with an anti-tank grenade. Also you were wearing a mighty silly hat.
And come to think about it, you were terribly amused when, because of the extreme altitude and cold of the Karakoram, the blood vessels in my nose burst swelling the thing to monstrous proportions. It was tender in the extreme and yet you could do nothing but giggle. Pot kettle black my friend.
08/18/06 12:24 PM
jp said...
I wore no hat! You took photos, hombre -- and the camera never lies, even if the photographer does. It was my own HAIR that was mighty silly, Raul.
And as to your nose... I have no rejoinder. Pot to kettle, indeed.
08/18/06 01:04 PM
raul said...
You force me to dig though ancient negatives to find the picture of you in the Chitrali Pakol.