Run Don’t Walk, Fat Ass

Angry squirrels and I are in agreement that Fridays are the new days not to trust. Saturdays are also no good.

Last Friday I picked up my cousin Jessica and we drove down for my great grandmother’s funeral in Lakewood. We sat directly behind the relatives we are most familiar with, my uncle James (who is more or less my age), his girlfriend, and his sister Meghan and her children. As we installed ourselves in the pew James turned and looked around shiftily. He placed his hand in his jacket pocket and showed us a small blue container. Jess and I stared at it blankly. It felt like the 40’s, that he was trying to sell us prophylactics or porn. [Blogger’s note: I totally did not know how to spell ‘prophylactic’- in the future I should write ‘rubbers’ instead.] This was not a prophylactic, it was a grandma. My grandma. Well, part of her anyway. [Blogger's note: this could be the hip new toy this season: Pocket Grandmas or Pokegrama. Imagine Pikachu, but instead of saying “pika pika,” she could say “eat more eat more!”] Our eyes got big, and James was wondering what to do with his bottle of grandma. All I could think was to throw it in the ocean. No, my granny wasn’t into the ocean, but she was probably much less into hanging out in a random assortment of pockets simultaneously.

Now, I would like this to be understood before God and people who accidentally find my site whilst searching for porn, that when I die and am cremated (as this seems the most sanitary) I do not want small pieces of me to be sent home like morbid party favors.

Then the procession started and the priest came in. He was an older gentleman with a deep and droning voice like a cross between Ben Stein and Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama. He did all his priest-y things and then started the eulogy-esque section with the following: “People have mixed feelings about death. It’s like the story about your mother-in-law who drove over a cliff… in your brand new Mercedes.” Pause for chuckles… chuckles that never came. This would be a good point to mention that my grandma was a mother-in-law to three people sitting in that room to honor her memory. My great grandma was the kindest person that I have ever met, the nicest person ever. The sort of person you would be lucky to bring into your family and life. James turned and looked at me, shock written across his face. My eyes were wide as saucers and Jessica gave me the raised eyebrow stare from behind her hands. The priest’s voice betrayed no traces of humor and his attempt at a joke reverberated through the room before two sympathy guffaws broke the suddenly stagnant air.

The rest of the funeral passed without incident and Jessica and I raced back to her house for vegi-lasagna and Grey’s Anatomy reruns. Eventually I trudged to an office party at my boss’s house. I spent about 45 minutes and started to say my goodbyes. I went to my car and turned the ignition and pulled the lever to put my car in gear, to no avail. There was something amiss somewhere between my gear shifty thingy and my transmission. I returned to the party and my wonderful boss offered to call AAA for me. (This is a great place to mention that I had JUST cancelled my AAA membership after 3 YEARS of not using it.)

I was aware that I require a car between Friday and whenever the hell my car gets done and had to find a vehicle somewhere. I attempted to call my Auntie (who like every other living relative had JUST left for a camping trip), and eventually gave up and called my 12 year old cousin Sean. He skate boarded back to the campsite and Auntie told me that their spare car is in use, but I can take their 4 month old pimped out, crazy expensive mini-van until my car is repaired. Which is great, except that I can’t drive a van for shit, but as I have TWO airport runs to be made, I have to just suck it up.

Finally the AAA guy showed up and tells me it’s my transmission cable, but he can rig it so I can drive to the shop and does so. My very lovely boss’s excellent son offered to ferry me from the auto shop to my uncle’s house. We were half way there and on an extremely curvy road with no shoulder when my car began to rev up to RPMs that it has never before seen whilst simultaneously slowing down. I pulled over into the gated driveway of the local post office and my boss’s son (who no doubt has better things to do on a Friday night) attempted to reach his mother. No cell reception. After wandering around a bit he contorted himself into a strange position half-way on top of his car and called his mom. He explained the situation and we stood there for a few minutes while I apologized profusely (because I am obviously cursed). Unexpectedly the AAA guy showed up and explained that he got worried driving away and turned around to check on us. Nice. He clamped something in place and followed us to the garage, where I abandoned my car (which I later realized was full of things that I needed including my laundry, recent gas receipts (just wait for that section of my suckage), and grad school materials for my Sunday morning meeting.

I arrived at my uncle’s house and sat down to drink a glass of water and regain my shaken composure. After a few minutes I got up and went to the key drawer. And inside said drawer, no keys. This can be noted as the point at which I almost started crying. Instead I called Auntie and after a few moments of thinking she realized that she put them in some other drawer. I grabbed the keys and drove the van home. (2 days later I determined how to turn off the climate control. The button was marked ‘off’ and void of any symbols indicating what it turned off.) If you ever want a good time, watch me attempt to parallel park a van in my neighborhood.

Later that night Addy, Steve and I took a nice relaxing walk around the lake, during which, a car load of teenagers yelled, “Run, don’t walk, Fat Ass.” Surely my ass had had enough abuse for one day.

The next morning I drove my friends to the airport and right about at Boeing Field the gas light came on. After dropping them off I exited the airport to Burien and found a gas station (and dropped about $60 on gas) only to realize that I had no idea of how to find the highway. Luckily my Auntie and uncle sprang for that GPS directory business and I hit the ‘take me home’ button. A calm voice directed me back to the interstate and I cruised up to Cap Hill for a very fun barbeque followed by a viewing of The Night Listener, which I may add actually had me freaking out and saying such things to the TV as “Oh God, don’t go in there!” and “Oh Disaster!” (4 monkeys.)

Yesterday I was so caught up in the film Anatomy of a Murder (3 monkeys and p.s. they used the word ‘bitch’ in this 1960 film, starring Jimmy Stewart.) that I was late to let the dog out to pee and then the cat got out, which resulted in me hysterically searching for it, which resulted in a sweaty, nearly tearful Quiana hustling down to drop some friends off at the airport TWENTY minutes late. 20 minutes is probably greater than the cumulative number of minutes that I have been late to anywhere in the last year. This resulted in neigh on constant apologies to same said friends. On the return trip the gas light of HER car came on as I was just about reaching Boeing Field (hereafter to be known as the Land of the Auto Damned). I made it to the James St. exit and up the hill as the car was having seizures from lack of gas. I put in $10 of gas and consider myself now absolved of all lateness.

Last night I set my alarm for PM instead of AM and if the cat (recently returned from an exciting vacation/man hunt) hadn’t jumped onto my bladder, I would still be asleep at this very moment.

Today I heard from the auto shop which notified me that I am looking at about $900 in repairs (for the cable and for anchors to prevent my engine from oh say, falling out of my car/ busting my cable AGAIN). This is approximately $899 more than I have. Loyal SUCkers will recall that in February I dropped $1182.11 on repairs on my car of Eternal Damnation and Torment. Where is the point at which I should resign myself to new and exciting $300 a month car payments for 4 years and just bag this car? Any advice?

This new information prompted me to make sure that I had plenty of space on my credit card- which I KNEW I did already, but which enabled me to find that some gas station last week charged me $95 on my credit card. And because my car is in the shop, I can’t correct it until Tuesday or Thursday because I keep my gas receipts in my car to track my increasingly poor gas mileage (of doom).

Fucking Ricockulous Attempt at a Silver Lining on the Cloud of the Shit Storm of my Life:
1. My car didn’t break down on the way to my granny’s funeral.
2. My engine didn’t fall out.
3. The cat came back (prior to the very next day).
4. I’m going to very seriously violate the gas station who is trying to rip me off.
5. Last night I had fro-yo.
6. Wendy’s has released a burger called The Baconator- the bad news being that they have 830 calories and now I can’t afford one.
7. The 7-11 at 362 Denny Way has been remodeled into a Kwik-E-Mart. Yes, I would like a squishy.