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I just got home.
My snake is sick. He's been off his food for weeks, and acting really uncomfortable, so I take him into the vet this morning. Since it's cold as fuck here right now, I drove him there and then went straight to work. Had a completely fucked up day at work, so I was in a totally foul mood when I got in my car to go pick up Rudy from the vets. Turn the key in the ignition. Nothing. I sit and count to ten. This is all Axel's fault. He taunted her. She hates being taunted. I call CAA. "Your membership has expired." BC didn't renew the membership. Didn't I tell her to renew the membership? I'm sure I told her to renew the membership. But she didn't renew the membership. Count to twenty. Agree to have somebody come out and give me a boost for $45. Sit and wait for an hour until he shows up. The vet is closing in 20 minutes, if I drive like an asshole I should just make it. I Get there five minutes before they lock the doors and the doctor gives me the rundown on my snake. Parasitic infestation with secondary bacterial infections. X-rays, antibiotics, blood tests, de-worming, bacterial cultures, saline injections and three enemas. Plus tax. Five hundred dollars. Rudy is grumpy as hell, he's spent most of the day with a hose up his butt. I'm not in a much better mood. We get in the car. I turn the key. Nothing. I say words. I see a taxi headed my way so I jump out of the car, grab Rudy and my knapsack and flag him down. Pay the cabby, get Rudy inside where it's warm, stick him in a box he can't get out of and spend the next half-hour scrubbing the living fuck out of his aquarium and every-thing else he's been in contact with. With Rudy settled in, I head out to get my car. BC agrees to drive me out. There is fuck-all but boarded-up store-fronts on the street and I can barely see what I'm doing as I hook up the battery cables. Turn the ignition. No dice. We finally give up trying to get the thing to boost and I resign myself to having to pay for a tow. BC is getting that I-don't-want-to-be-here look around the corner of her eyes that I have finally learned to recognize as a danger signal, so I pack her off home and hike over to the doughnut shop on the corner. There are about a half-dozen people in the doughnut store. They stare at me when I walk in. I go to talk to the woman behind the counter. "Do you have a payphone?" She stares at me for a full minute with her mouth sagging open. She has Down's Syndrome. She finally shakes her head. "Can you change this for me so I have some quarters?" She counts the change out very carefully one coin at a time. I pocket the money and walk down the street. It is completely deserted, the few cars that do drive by look to be fifty percent bondo. I finally find a payphone outside a store with about a weeks worth of garbage piled up outside. I call CAA and explain my predicament. "You can renew your membership right now and then you'll be covered for this tow." Sure. What the fuck. I just dropped half a fucking grand on my fucking pet reptile. Sign me up. Hell, sign the whole neighbourhood up, most of their cars seem to have cinderblocks where the wheels are supposed to be, that can't be good for their milage. I arrange to meet the tow-truck driver back at the doughnut shop, figuring at least I can get a coffee. I have to sit where I can see out into the parking lot, in the glass I can see the reflections of the other patrons, who stare at me until I turn my head, then pretend to look away. They are all speaking french. The tow-truck driver arrives. His truck is heated. He tows my car. He drives me home in his heated truck. I propose but we disagree on what religion to raise the kids, so he turns me down and we part ways. I'm exhausted. I'm home. And I'm about $850 poorer. And I have to learn how to give my snake an enema. Anybody want to buy a car? |
