I complain about how stupid the world is, and try to conclude with something uplifting.
This was my day off to get stuff done, and I did...eventually.
Despite staying up too late, I rose and shone at 10:30, to find Amanda impatiently sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for me (she was my company for the day.)
The first glitch was that the Tennessee Department of Safety is not open on Mondays. Because I am a reasonable human being, I refused to believe this, at first, but it is apparently true. That's what I get for giving the bureaucracy the benefit of the doubt. A public, government agency...is not open...on MONDAYS. Do I need to say more?
The second glitch was when my car caught fire.*NOTE TO OWNERS OF OLDER FORDS: Instead of using a simple speaker for the little bell that sounds when you forget to turn your lights off, or leave your keys in, Ford elected to use a complicated device of their own design, in which an electromagnetic coil vibrates a little metal bar that strikes a bell. The bad news is that this is apparently a much higher-current device than a speaker would have been. On my particular model, there's a double black wire that runs power into it, and also apparently grounds it back to the battery.
End technical discussion. The point is that if you don't plug said double black wire into anything, because, as a random example, you took the dinger out while trying to find an electrical short in your headlights, it just forms a loop going straight back to the battery. This makes it act basically like an element in a toaster, and will, apparently, burn the insulation off of it in about three seconds.
Amanda was sitting in the passenger seat when I re-connected the battery terminal this morning.
"Um," she said. "Is this supposed to happen?" I leaned around the hood, and saw the cloud of white smoke pouring out the windows.
"HOLY CRAP, NO!" I exclaimed, dashing to disconnect the battery (I admit, my quotability suffers in times of crisis.) There then followed much coughing and fanning, and a phone-call to Janice to let her know we might be a few minutes late meeting her for lunch.
To my credit, I got the car fixed in time for Mandi and I to catch Janice. So YES! Score one for the home team! There is now nothing wrong with the car that wasn't wrong before I started! I AM AWESOME.
The third hurdle came in the form of having to make not one, not two, but THREE trips to the damned registration office for Tennessee tags. On the first trip, I was rejected, and given instructions to obtain two official documents proving that I live in Tennessee. I was unsure this was even going to be possible, because I haven't changed the addresses on much of my stuff. Eventually, after depression and self-loathing had taken hold, while Mandi was trying to console me by telling me she loved me, and could we please go to the pool, even if I couldn't find my papers? I came up with the stub from my water bill. It had my name and address on it. I was halfway there, and a sudden fire of determination burned within me. I found the lease copy, but it was...guess what!...not signed by the landlord. Bitch.
After two lengthy phonecalls, in which the phone just rang and rang and was not even picked up by voicemail, I told Amanda to get in the car, and went and visited her in person. She was home (of course) and seemed quite surprised to see my battered car in the gigantic driveway in front of her gigantic house, but she signed the document readily enough, falsifying the date without a moment's hesitation. I could do little but follow suite.
All this availed me little however, as I was rebuffed yet again, this time by the fact that the office couldn't currently accept my debit card (not because there's anything wrong with my card, just because their machine wasn't operating.) Amanda and I were undaunted, and struck out to the nearest ATM...which didn't work, and took a damn long time about it. I tried again, and it again didn't work, and again took a long damn time about it, so I gave up and drove to the other end of Commonwealth, where my bank had an office.
The third time, the woman behind the counter accused me of having stolen her pen when I was there, previously. It is fortunate for her that, at this point, Amanda intervened and said her pen had fallen behind her computer, because I was going to snap and tear her head off. After this, she thanked Amanda, but did not apologize to me, though she turned over my new plates cheerfully enough.
Then I went to three different auto-supply stores before I found one that had the stuff I needed to patch up the places where the wire had burned bare in my car.
But it ends well, ladies and gentlemen: it ends with Mandi and I finally making our promised trip to the pool, and driving away into the patter of warm summer rain, with the windows down and the Decemberists playing loud. It ends with me jogging alongside her, while she rides Cristin's bike down the Steele Creek Park trail. It ends in lightning bugs and walking the bike back on a humid, clinging June evening, happy to be home, at last.
And, tomorrow, it begins again.
Despite staying up too late, I rose and shone at 10:30, to find Amanda impatiently sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for me (she was my company for the day.)
The first glitch was that the Tennessee Department of Safety is not open on Mondays. Because I am a reasonable human being, I refused to believe this, at first, but it is apparently true. That's what I get for giving the bureaucracy the benefit of the doubt. A public, government agency...is not open...on MONDAYS. Do I need to say more?
The second glitch was when my car caught fire.*NOTE TO OWNERS OF OLDER FORDS: Instead of using a simple speaker for the little bell that sounds when you forget to turn your lights off, or leave your keys in, Ford elected to use a complicated device of their own design, in which an electromagnetic coil vibrates a little metal bar that strikes a bell. The bad news is that this is apparently a much higher-current device than a speaker would have been. On my particular model, there's a double black wire that runs power into it, and also apparently grounds it back to the battery.
End technical discussion. The point is that if you don't plug said double black wire into anything, because, as a random example, you took the dinger out while trying to find an electrical short in your headlights, it just forms a loop going straight back to the battery. This makes it act basically like an element in a toaster, and will, apparently, burn the insulation off of it in about three seconds.
Amanda was sitting in the passenger seat when I re-connected the battery terminal this morning.
"Um," she said. "Is this supposed to happen?" I leaned around the hood, and saw the cloud of white smoke pouring out the windows.
"HOLY CRAP, NO!" I exclaimed, dashing to disconnect the battery (I admit, my quotability suffers in times of crisis.) There then followed much coughing and fanning, and a phone-call to Janice to let her know we might be a few minutes late meeting her for lunch.
To my credit, I got the car fixed in time for Mandi and I to catch Janice. So YES! Score one for the home team! There is now nothing wrong with the car that wasn't wrong before I started! I AM AWESOME.
The third hurdle came in the form of having to make not one, not two, but THREE trips to the damned registration office for Tennessee tags. On the first trip, I was rejected, and given instructions to obtain two official documents proving that I live in Tennessee. I was unsure this was even going to be possible, because I haven't changed the addresses on much of my stuff. Eventually, after depression and self-loathing had taken hold, while Mandi was trying to console me by telling me she loved me, and could we please go to the pool, even if I couldn't find my papers? I came up with the stub from my water bill. It had my name and address on it. I was halfway there, and a sudden fire of determination burned within me. I found the lease copy, but it was...guess what!...not signed by the landlord. Bitch.
After two lengthy phonecalls, in which the phone just rang and rang and was not even picked up by voicemail, I told Amanda to get in the car, and went and visited her in person. She was home (of course) and seemed quite surprised to see my battered car in the gigantic driveway in front of her gigantic house, but she signed the document readily enough, falsifying the date without a moment's hesitation. I could do little but follow suite.
All this availed me little however, as I was rebuffed yet again, this time by the fact that the office couldn't currently accept my debit card (not because there's anything wrong with my card, just because their machine wasn't operating.) Amanda and I were undaunted, and struck out to the nearest ATM...which didn't work, and took a damn long time about it. I tried again, and it again didn't work, and again took a long damn time about it, so I gave up and drove to the other end of Commonwealth, where my bank had an office.
The third time, the woman behind the counter accused me of having stolen her pen when I was there, previously. It is fortunate for her that, at this point, Amanda intervened and said her pen had fallen behind her computer, because I was going to snap and tear her head off. After this, she thanked Amanda, but did not apologize to me, though she turned over my new plates cheerfully enough.
Then I went to three different auto-supply stores before I found one that had the stuff I needed to patch up the places where the wire had burned bare in my car.
But it ends well, ladies and gentlemen: it ends with Mandi and I finally making our promised trip to the pool, and driving away into the patter of warm summer rain, with the windows down and the Decemberists playing loud. It ends with me jogging alongside her, while she rides Cristin's bike down the Steele Creek Park trail. It ends in lightning bugs and walking the bike back on a humid, clinging June evening, happy to be home, at last.
And, tomorrow, it begins again.