Listen Dude, I HAVE to Get Home!

If I didn't have the opportunity to record some of the bizarre things that happen to me, I would begin to think I had imagined all of them. Take Thursday, for example . . .

I was in D.C. to attend a daylong training seminar. Though useful for my job (I suppose), it was long and boring. As I have a hard time sitting still, I was bouncing of the walls by the time we were paroled at 5:15 p.m. I hopped a cab back to my hotel to retrieve my luggage and car. Then I set out for home.

Or so I tried.

About 30 miles outside of D.C. my car just didn't feel right. This didn't make much sense, since I had the oil changed/fluids topped/yadda only 2 days prior. But the car was losing her juice, and finally I had to pull over to the side of the road. And pray. And quietly stew. And remind myself that this has happened before (last year, also in D.C. on a biz trip), and I survived that time, too. Only the previous time it wasn't dark out, or raining, and I DESPERATELY NEEDED TO GET HOME!!!

After a few minutes on the side of road, I managed to restart the car, and together we limped off an exit ramp and into a Sheetz station. It was already 7:10 p.m., and I was supposed to be fasting in advance of bloodwork scheduled for 7:00 a.m. the following day. But I hadn't eaten dinner yet. So after scarfing down something from Sheetz (I think better when I have food in my stomach), I spotted some "10 minute lube" place about a half-mile up the road.

By this time it's 7:30, and the place closed at 7:00 p.m. But alas, the lights were still on! I think that the mixture of desperation and sheer determination in my voice convinced the two guys still there at the shop to look under the hood. Of course, I am willing to also give some credit to the following: great hair, a tight sweater, and my considerable charm. Who knows what really convinced them? I didn't care!

After about 10 minutes of poking around, the 23 year old guy excitedly announces that there is a broken wingnut on the cable-thingy that holds the battery in place. He theorized that somebody, along the way, tightened the thing so much that it sorta snapped, and whomever screwed it up tried to gerry rig the thing in place with some pins (they actually looked like carpet staples). This meant that every time my car hit the slightest of bumps, the battery would detach a bit from the cable, which was resulting in the loss of complete power as I drove. [Now I am sure I am completely phucking up this explanation, but trust me, it made sense and was the truth]

So the 23 year old (now my hero) disappeared for a few minutes, and then returned with some sort of bolt/screw that he had ground down to a suitable size that would fake out my battery in the short term. He somehow secured the thing in place (there was no duct tape used, for any of you smart asses who may be wondering!) My hero refused to take any money, or charge me anything. I finally left a $20 bill (I only had $29 in cash on me, and needed $8 for the turnpike toll) for him on the desk near where he was cleaning up, and ran to my now purring vehicle.

I then managed to drive the next 225+ miles home without stopping once. This was amazing, considering my famous world's smallest bladder.

Of course, the trip home had two of its own bizarre details that should be shared, in order to properly frame the evening . . . at one point I had switched lanes, going from the fast to slow lane, Not 100 feet later did I spot a mattress in the fast lane. Whew -- close miss, eh?! I thought about how bad the driver who lost the mattress must have felt when that sucker flew off their ride!

And then, a few miles later and still in the slow lane, I suddenly had to swerve onto the shoulder, as there was ANOTHER mattress on the road, rolled up like a friggin' burrito! And just as quickly as I swerved onto the shoulder, I had to swerve back onto the road, so as to not become impaled on a road sign. In my rearview mirror I watched the tractor-trailer behind me pull a similar dance.

I rolled in around midnight, thankfully. Only to be up at 5:00 a.m. the following morning to haul ass out to Oakland for my labwork and procedure. My life . . . oi vey.