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Saturday, July 14, 2012

Gone For 40 Days

Hi Internet - I am taking part in a 40 day fast with my church that for me will include a little break from social media. I will be back late August. Feel free to look around at my old posts while I'm gone, leave me comments, suggest life coaches, or recommend dealers for cat prozac.

See you in August!

Monday, July 9, 2012

No Place For A Pony

This past Saturday, I rolled out of bed, headed out the door to meet friends for brunch, walked into my parking garage and found:

My Mustang had been stolen.

At least that’s what I thought had happened. Turns out, I was towed. Which is a story for another day (when I’m supposed to be doing homework but I procrastinate and blog instead, which is how this blog gets written most of the time) but until then, I thought I’d reshare why my brain went immediately to theft for those of you who missed the original post here.

See below. And feel free to share in the comments if you’ve ever had anything stolen – would be nice to know I’m not the only one who has this kind of “luck”….

Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Mustang Sally

You all may have read the account HERE of the time I reported my Mustang ("Sally", of course. She looked similar to this:)




stolen after forgetting I had driven it to the gym. But that wasn't the last time I'd report that car stolen.

Many of you know that I miraculously landed my first job out of college at The White House. Trust me, this was God's doing, because I actually had to ask someone who Dick Cheney was when he walked past me shortly after I got to DC. I was THAT oblivious about politics and this career path literally fell in my lap in spite of myself. Anyway, during my 2nd week on my job - where I'm trying desperately to act smart and capable - my car gets stolen from Union Station. And the joys do not end there.
I'll back up to when I parked to begin with. I was awaiting my official parking pass to use the garage at work, so I parked at Union Station and took the metro. That morning, as I parked next to BMWs and Mercedes, I looked at my steering wheel "Club" and thought, "I'm being paranoid. Who is going to pick the Ford to steal?" and I put the Club in my trunk.... When I got back that evening, my car was gone.

And the police and insurance company gave me no hope of recovering it since they believed it'd be sold to a chop shop immediately, so I got a rental car through my insurance. By then, I could use the garage at work - which is valet. So you drive down into the garage, then just exit your car with the key in it and the (mean!) garage attendant parks it for you. Easy enough! I jump out and walk across the street to my office, get through Secret Service, up the elevator, to my desk...where my phone is blinking.

And on the voicemail, is an IRATE message from the garage attendant YELLING something difficult to understand. But I hear "key in the car" and I hear "you locked the doors"....

So I scurry back over to find a LINE of White House staffer cars behind mine who can't get in the garage, and I have to face Mean -Now Livid- Garage Man, and call a locksmith.

And you know what is easier to break into than my generic rental car? ABSOLUTELY EVERY OTHER CAR IN THE WORLD. I can't even remember the model, it was something akin to a Ford Probe, and the locksmith is DUMBFOUNDED. He CAN NOT break into this bad boy and he even tells me how he's had no problems with high-end vehicles, how there are certain points in a car you can compromise, but nope! Not this one! This one has thought of EVERYTHING and you can not break in.

So he breaks the door handle to finally help me. On. My. Rental.

And at this point, I'm feeling so embarrassed/frightened that I would've smashed the window and slid in Dukes of Hazzard style if it would get Garage Man to stop glaring at me. So I pay the guy. And walk back to my office.

And since I'm still trying to put on a charade of dependability, I begin to brief my boss on the day's tasks. And she stops me. "What's wrong with you? You've broken out in hives."

I didn't even know I COULD break into hives, but apparently red splotches had creeped up my neck towards my face as I'm trying to suppress the stress of the morning.

And I burst into tears and explain the whole thing.

Thankfully, my boss was a very cool lady and everything worked out. My dad came to help me finagle the handle back on my rental before returning it and my insurance settled with me for a good amount and I bought another Mustang.

Then they found my old one.

Apparently, punk teens had just taken it for a joy ride and abandoned it in an alley in DC. I was even able to go to the impound lot and recover what belongings (which is another story for later) they hadn't taken with them. But guess what they did take?

My Club.

Oh sweet irony.....

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Another Look Into A Typical Day

Since I've started sharing on here about all of the weird stuff that happens to me (like the explanation of my tagline Here) friends have started randomly texting me that they just went through something weird - and they thought of me. And how that must be how I feel every day. So just to prove their hunch correct, I think it's time for another:

Break Down of a Typical Dana Day.

I give you: Yesterday.

8:00 am - I take Chloe to the vet because she refuses to stop expressing her feelings to me by leaving messages on my rugs each day. In urine.

8:45- Chloe gets prescribed Kitty Prozac. And I think she should share.

9:15 - Chloe and I get stuck in standstill traffic, making me even later for work.

9:20 - I find out there's an accident on the interstate and feel thankful I'm about to exit for my apartment.

9:30 - I exit for my apartment -- and see emergency vehicles are also off my exit. For another issue. I'm never getting to work today...

9:35 - I realize I'm nearly out of gas and I pull into the gas station across the street from my place - and find out none of their pumps work due to a storm several days ago.

9:40 - I drive to the next gas station and begin to feel less in control of my patience. Exclamations may have been made.

9:45 - Two pumps are full, one doesn't work - I drive into the last one. And realize there's a hand written note saying it's not currently taking credit cards.

9:46 - I ask the man on the other side if his pump takes cards. He said he doesn't know because this is the first time he's been there.

Um...is this also the first time you've used a gas pump in the U.S.? Because pretty much all of them have a credit card machine in front of your face.

9:47 - I get in line behind the man's pump after looking for my dang self and seeing that the card machine was in fact working.

9:48 - I inexplicably hit the "yes I want a receipt" button even though I never do that.

9:57 - my pump finishes -- and tells me I have to go inside to get my receipt.

Sigh.

9:58 - I'm inside - there's no one else.

9:59 - A lady pulls up behind my car and watches in confusion while I walk around and nearly start to pull my own receipt off the machine behind the counter, causing the gas station guy to finally walk in to help me.

10:00 - the lady gives up and tries to maneuver her car around to the other set of pumps. Unsucessfully.

10:01 - Finally armed with my receipt, I get in my car -- and now have to wait for the lady to Austin Powers her car back and forth in front of me before I can leave the gas station.

10:02 - I start laughing uncontrollably at the obsurdity of it all and realize I'm going to just have to take vacation hours this a.m. because I'm not getting to work anytime soon.

The rest of my day goes by fairly normally until it's time for me to head to class. And this is always stressful because class is at 5:15 which is nearly impossible to get to on time because I get stuck at work with stuff at the end of the day.
4:30 pm: I'm fleeing my desk to get to the train and I get a text from CVS - that my cat's new drug habit is ready to be supported.

Dang it. Forgot about that. And tomorrow's a holiday. And I just took off work to get this cat issue fixed - she is taking those drugs dang it.

4:31 - I stop by the ladies' room on my run to CVS. And I'm checking a text message and simultaneously get a call that I accidentally answer because my finger is already on the phone screen. And answering the call is fine, except I'm in a public restroom, frantically tranistioning between work ---> cat drug deal --->class. So the person on the other line probably thinks I sound crazy and the person in the bathroom with me definitely thinks I sounds crazy.

4:45 - I accidentally take the elevator all the way down to my garage out of habit, when I realize I'm not getting my car, I'm getting on the metro train. After I get drugs. I'm never getting to class today....

5:15 - I'm now running down the street towards class with cat drugs in my purse.


11:00 pm - I finally get home, after class and meeting up with an old friend, just in time to realize I had committed earlier in the day to going tubing down a river the next day - and forgot I still have stitches on my rear end.

And then I fall asleep. And get ready for whatever craziness will come tomorrow...