today has sucked

(Before continuing to read this post, please note: my awesome song and movie reference in the title.)

The last eighteen hours of my life have sucked. Flat out, and completely.


It started with rain. Which is a weird thing to say sucks, because generally I enjoy rain. I like the sound it makes and all the very big puddles and especially thunder and lightning. But the rain killed my car, for the third time now and a grand in fixing it later, it killed my car. I was driving back home last night around midnight - as I've said, in the rain - and I could feel my car doing it, doing that thing that it's done right before it stopped starting the last two times. It was doing this really weird, sluggish thing. Now, my car might be somewhat older, but it gets up and goes. I barely touch the accelerator and it jumps to fifty mph. Well, I'd be stopped at a light and then when it would turn green, even though I had my foot pressing it all the way down, it was barely getting up to twenty. And then a full minute later, I was struggling to keep it at forty. I was going to stop at Wal-mart to grab some things, but I just sort of knew. So I kept driving until I got home. I cut off the engine, paused for a moment, and then cranked it again. And it didn't start. The car I bought four months ago. And I am not happy about it.

Now, I don't say the last twenty four hours have sucked, because the first six of those twenty four were quite fun. I ate lots of pizza and ice cream and saw all three Screams for the first time and generally just enjoyed myself with my wonderful Nicole.

But then, this morning, though I was depressed about my car, I was ok. The whole thing's become rather routine by now anyway, so I just did what I do. Called AAA, called the Nissan place. Showered, dressed, chatted it up with the tow truck man. Well, since I don't have a car now, I got to ride my bike to work! Which honestly isn't bad, the campus is close and it's good exercise and I drink way too much Sundrop not to need exercise, so there you have it. Except it was still raining when I woke up this morning. And it was about 37 degrees (plus frigid water falling from the sky), which - in this town, in nearly April - is polar.

So I rode my bike to work and by the time I got there I was soaked all the way through. Picture this: me, scowling about my car and being wet and my ears that ached and my stomach cramping and shaky all over because I'm cold and freezing and quite irritated. Me, while scowling about all this, dripping all over the hot dogs I'm making to feed the customers who won't be coming to the softball game I have to work at that won't actually take place because, hey! It's raining! They don't play ball in the pouring down rain, it messes up the infield! But that's ok, because the hot dogs were warm.

Well, I get to the softball field (at this point, while I had dried off a little bit in the kitchen, my butt is all the way soaked through from sitting on the seats of the golf cart that refused to be dry even after I wiped it with a towel for ten minutes) and the gate is locked. This is that big flashing light that everyone gets right before they go into a situation that they should just walk away from. Kind of like when Nicole stuck her head outside last night before my car decided to break up with me and said "hey, it's raining." Big Flashing Sign. I didn't see it. At this point in my story, it's 11:30. They decide whether or not to call the game at 12:15, they say. Well, whatever, I'll just chill (wink) in the freezing concrete concessions stand and read for a while. Not a big deal.

They didn't decide they were having the game that no one attended until 2:00. But I had sterno. Now, sterno is this blue gel stuff in a can that you light for fire and it burns for about two hours. Kind of like portable fire. We, Aramark, and other food services people, use this. Also, hikers who hang out in the remote wilderness for weeks use it, and so does the military overseas in equally wild, remote places. Kind of like the icebox I was in, shivering and dripping wet and warming my butt up with sterno underneath my chair. I was braving it out there.

I'd planned to leave at no later than three, but clearly that wasn't happening because my boss was cozy in his office and didn't want to let me leave. Thanks. So I worked anyway, and it was totally worth it because I (Aramark) made $19 in nearly seven hours. Actually, I personally made about fifty, but hey? Hey. The funny thing about this weekend is that I worked eleven or twelve hours, and in all of that, the stand made $64. That's a little more than $5 an hour, and I wasn't even actually selling stuff about half that time, so please reduce the number by two point five. I'm pretty sure I could make more than that being a street performer. Or hooking, but that's not an option. I could even do something artistic with it like they do in New York, like stare pensively without moving a single inch of me for several hours. That would be neat.

But I made it back to Wag (the place I work out of) successfully. Counted the money, and very quickly might I add, since there was very little of it. And then I booked it out of there. Into the rain, of course. Riding home was a nightmare. My bicycle got torn up by some skinny high school HOOLIGANS last September. So since then the handlebars have been bent funny, the brakes don't work very well, and it only has one working gear - the slowest. This was me, peddling along on my bike like a cartoon whose feet are doing very very fast, blurred circles but who is moving along at snail speed. Meanwhile, being pelted with rain and unable to see much of anything, hoping and praying that I don't get run over by the massive vehicles with their very warm and dry interior, the massive vehicles that STILL DRIVE WHEN IT RAINS AND ACTUALLY START.

Good things about today, however: my ex-boyfriend's mortal enemy got stuck working too, so that cheered me up. And now, I am warm and dry and my belly is very full with hot chocolate, and I am knitting socks by the fire with care. How nice =)

cheers.