ODDREE.COM

Drive It Off a Bridge

I hopped in my car this morning and headed off to work. I noticed that I had left the window cracked yesterday and the cold air was freezing me out. I reached for my window crank to roll it up and it was gone. The window crank was missing. Fuck! In my window crankiness, I got on the wrong highway entrance. This was bad, because the next exit was closed for construction. So I had to drive a good 5 miles just to turn the car around and head back.

Whan I got to work and started marching up the steps I noticed everyone was gathered into the conference room. Woops. I had blown off yet another meeting. I had better not show up now (it was about over). So I headed back downstairs to hide.

A while later I get a call from one of the salespeople upstairs. It was my lucky day. This woman who I was supposed to be teaching Access to had got her funding. And so a class that I was praising God for cancelling was back on again, and I would have to be there in an hour. This was going to be a problem, because I needed to go take a piss test today. I had my interview with Best Buy last night, and of course I was hired. But I had to go donate some urine for my manditory drug test.

I call the woman, and we planned for tomorrow morning to start things. I am not looking forward to this shit. I don't know a damn thing about Access anymore. I don't use it. I almost hope it turns out awful and they complain that I don't know anything. Then perhaps they will stop putting me into gigs' like this that I wasn't consulted on before hand.

So having put off this training for another day, I headed out for my drug test in Westerville (about 40 minutes away). Low and behold, my battery was flat dead. I know that my battery has been weak lately. It had finally died. It took me a while to find someone to jump me. So after asking everyone I work with for jumper cables I finally found someone willing and I got on my way.

There was contruction and the exit I needed was closed. This was ... not good. The next exit was a full 20 miles away. I had to leave the city ... to turn around .... to drive all the way back. Are you seeing a pattern to my day? When I got to the drug testing place, I had to leave my car running, unlocked, with a Dell and my laptop sitting in my front seat. Fuck it.

I peed in my cup, signed a bunch of shit, and was on my way. When I got home and pulled into my driveway I found my window crank. It must have fallen off as I left home this morning. I was finally able to roll up my window!

Then I spent an hour or so looking for the keys to my dead Volvo so I could steal the battery out of it. I never found the keys. Once I went for a coat-hanger and started jamming it in the glass, my wife joined in the search for the keys and found them rather quickly. And so I switched batteries, jumping the dead battery from the nearly-dead battery (with the trickle charger still attached!). I let the bug run a bit while I chomped down dinner, but I could tell it needed a good long charge.

After dinner I took the bug for a long trip to get er' charged up. It was kind of peaceful driving around in the cold night. Nowhere inparticular to go. At some point I came off the highway, and rolled through Dublin, then went back on the highway and racked up another 30 miles or more. I hate this time of year. The cold air biting at me. Reminding me that Christmas is right around the corner. Once again I am entering the holiday season miles in debt, and a mortgage payment behind. Or is it two payments behind? Hell, it doesn't matter.

Study for a test you don't have time to take.
Learn Access in one hour, so you can teach it tomorrow.
Set up a class for next week.
Fix your car (one of them).
Rinse, repeat.

Fuck my job. Fuck the cold of winter. Fuck Access. Fuck our president. Fuck spending all my spare time setting up classes.

Fuck.