10.21.2009

I've always depended on the kindess of strangers

...Although I've never considered myself a Blanche Dubois type, although I detest asking for help (even though I may really need it), I actually begged a ride tonight from someone I know, at best, marginally. It made me feel... weird. And boyo, I thought my own car had shitty alignment. I've never been in a car that kinda goes thumpa-thumpa-thumpa from side to side (not up and down, and rather uniformly)...audibly. My car only does a little wiggle thing.
Or it would, if it were actually capable of going anywhere right now. Currently, it's about 5.1 miles away from the house, parked very safely in the farthest-from-the-door reaches of the parking lot that I am usually relegated to.
I, like a puling idiot unable to wipe my own nose much less be one to be trusted to operate a motor vehicle safely, left my lights on Thursday because it was drizzly and state law requires it (TN code 55-9-406). Of course, by the time I got to work, the drizzle had stopped, but no... I couldn't be bothered to remember to turn off my lights. Well, come out to the car 9.5 hours later and ta-fucking-da, the rear lights are faintly glowing, I curse like a drunken sailor out for a good time, and see if there's any way at all I can magically get an almost-but-not-quite-all-the-way-dead battery to somehow turn over the starter to get the alternator pumping juice back into the not-yet-quite-expired battery. Click-click-click. Fuck.
Get a jump from Junior and his 'jump point' featured car. Lights on the dash get brighter...oh wait. No click-click. O...kay. Means it hasn't say on a charge long enough. He has no problem talking inanely to a strange woman on her bestest behaviour to be a reasonably polite member of society. Let's wait, shall we?!?
I have problems talking inanely to, well, let's just use the word locals. I'm a morally reprehensible, socially bankrupt type of gal. Really. Ask anyone. I am, at the very least, a bit of a bawd. I find it hard, oh-so-very hard-hard-hard! to talk to rednecks whose only concern is that their basest needs be met in a manner they deem acceptable. These males are often referred to as 'Baby's Daddy' as opposed to 'My Husband'. Frequently 'engaged' and introduced as 'My fiance... you know, my baby's daddy?', they are usually good enough to fuck but damn are they as dumb as a box full of rocks! This one wasn't even pretty to look at.
But I was polite, asked about the baby asleep in the backseat, nodded, murmured politely, essentially waited (but not silently) for 1/2 an hour while my means of transport sat hooked up like an anemic to a transfusion kit.
I honestly don't think Junior could have shown me where the battery was actually located on his car. Knowing about some of these things, it was probably in the trunk. But I wasn't hooked up to a real battery. I was hooked up to the little bolt and fuse contraption that passes for a place to jump-start your car under the hood in a silly engine instead of with a genuine battery. Can't convince me it works to jump TO a dead car as opposed to getting a jump at it.
Half an hour, 30 minutes, and dammit, there's a fucking cold front pouring down on us from the great white north (take off, eh!) and I'm just getting over being sick for a fucking month and 1/2 and not feeling well and losing my voice twice and .....ARGH. Turn the key, no click-click-click, just that 'You've got all systems engaged and ready to go but it's stopped' almost muted tap. But the lights are brighter, the dash lights. I've started it with about the same amount of juice before (last time you left on the lights, dumbfuck!), but no dice. No turn over. Dead car.
That was Thursday.
Friday, I had off. Sic-un worked, I had it off.
Saturday, I had off. So did Sic-un.
Ever try to lug a car battery while riding pillion on a motorcycle? I have. Now, that is. It's not fun, requires a steady driver and the ability actually balance to a certain degree on your own. There was no room for it anywhere on the bike except my lap, and since you straddle the seat (mental picture: Guy in a tutu riding a Vespa with a lantern battery on his lap lighting up his wand and fairy crown), it's only balanced on 1 leg. Heh. Not fun. And had to lug it both ways, dammit! Took the dead one to the friendly AutoZ, tested it, watched the individual cell tests or circuit tests or whatever you want to call them, and it ranged from 2.4 to 12.1, none of which were what they were supposed to be. Verdict, knowing it's 5 years old and I've left some lights on 3 times previously (parking lights 2x, dome light 1x (door didn't shut properly)), but for much shorter duration, bad battery, replace. Get it back to the car. Burn with shame at having people look at me carrying a battery balanced on my fucking lap.
30 minutes and $85 after arriving at the car to begin with, new battery is installed.
The lights come on. Nobody's home. No click-click, not a turn over in sight. Not even a whine. Just that muffled tap when I engage the key all the way.
This was supposed to be the paycheck I blew on Xmas stuff so I could actually give what I wanted to give this year instead of what I have to settle for giving to the people I love because I make shit for wages. DAMMIT.
Can't. So sorry. Too bad, so sad, where's the waaaahmbulance? Now I get to hope, for a full fucking week, that it really is the starter, that my ignition isn't bum (and I really don't think it is) and that I'll be able to, with Sic-un shuttling me and/or his son back and forth to my car and the parts places around here looking for a starter (although the AutoZone website says they have it available in store! thank whatever deities you wish!) that it really is just the starter and not the ignition or some other main fuse bullshit or coils or some such.
I don't wanna afford a tow and a serious electrical repair on a 10 year old car.
I can't afford a new car. I can't afford the few used cars that I'd trust. Urk.
And put all this together with being sick since what? July?!?!? (various respiration things, due (at least in part!) to the humidity, the flu, and several colds from people that don't think they're contagious) and 3 months of sounding like Harvey Fierstein without the glorious accent while they're demanding at that...that place that I just keep talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and then missing a period
OOOOH. Yeah. That was fun. Furiously taking a piss on a stick of fibers designed to entrap hormones released when you're pregnant. Yeah. Fun. MMMhm. Love it. Love.It. I recommend EVERYONE do it at least once in a lifetime. I did 2... 5 days apart. During which I should have had a period. Nothing. And negative on both tests. But wait! The next time the cycle runs around, there it is! And oh boyo, let me tell you...

Mother Nature is a bitch. The month of October has been a truly horrific experience for me this year. The entire fucking month to date has been quite horrifying. But I'm not pregnant (visualization: Large, heavy, oak beam connecting to my fist). At least, taking a piss on the stick says I'm not. And regular biology says I'm not either. As does checking to see when I last had a penis in me.
So add to all that loverly stress and now I have car issues.
Who'd I piss off? Why all this, right now?
Causing me to not only beg a jump from someone, but also to beg a ride from a genial gentleman I work with so I don't have to ride (I really can't believe I'm saying this) the back of the bike when it's only 40 degrees outside, even though I'm riding it every morning when it's under 40 degrees, forget about wind chill... I feel like the biggest stupe on the face of the planet. And Sic-un... my good grandmother what a fucking peach.
Really! No complaints, no bitching, he's having to get up a full 2 1/2 hours early to shuttle me to work, he's having to run all the errands. Get this...
"Well, this is the free paycheck, so we can pool if we need to and get it taken care of. Ketchup sandwiches, no problem."
o_0
Last time a car I owned was broken and needed fixed, Idiotboy pretty much ordered me to borrow someone else's car to come see him so he wouldn't have to drive across the fuckin' bridge.
Without prompting, asking, anything...Sic-un just says 'We'll get it taken care of'.
Comparisons are odious, so state Cervantes, Christopher Marlowe and John Donne. I should quit letting his decidedly elegant and beautiful nature continually surprise me. I should be used to it by now. And some large small part of me hopes like nobody's business I won't ever get used to it.
Can I bask in this for awhile, karma? Can I just appreciate the hell out of the man I have? All this and if I wanna fuck someone for the thrill, I have permission? Really? ME? I can? And this wondrous man is mine???And he washes dishes and he'll scrub a tub and will run the vacuum and get dinner and keep me in my soda (even after I told him just the HFCS crap from the shit-n-git on the corner is fine, no, he goes to the big grocery store 4 miles away instead of the QuikEMart and picks up my cane-sugar-only beautimous Jones cola, lugging fuckin' 12 packs on the Grape Ape...) and he makes the bed and sets the alarm and makes me giggle and blush even after 3 1/2 years and still makes me stare with how beautimous he is... Can I just bask in him for a bit? Without so much stress crap?

I'm tired of being sick and tired and stressed over bullshit. I want my long weekend (I have off friday through monday, so does he) with no stress, but I may, and ONLY "may" get a chance to get 2 days (sun/mon) with little to no stress. "I'm very adaptable to circumstances." I am, too, although I'm still not a Blanche Dubois type. But I'm tired of being very adaptable. I want to wallow in hedonistic orgies of conspicuous consumption, and not necessarily in that order. All together now... money money money MONey

2 comments:

Whirlbrain said...

I just replaced my battery . . . $100!!!! WTF?

What the hell happened?

Actually, I heard they're so expensive because China's buying all the lead . . . to make $100 batteries.

spcknght said...

Right there with ya, DN. Spent $700 a month ago to get my front brakes replaced...squealers never kicked in, so I didn't have a clue they were going until I heard them grinding away at metal.
Sorry to hear things suck this bad, but as you observed in such great detail...you have Sic. TOLD YOU that there was something good waiting in Tenn! :)

Hugs and positive-energies to y'all, and hopeful prayers that things start looking better for EVERYONE.