I just might be an idiot

Over the past weekend my car was locked inside of a parking lot. How you ask? Well let me tell you “The Story of an Idiot”. Friday night I went to go see a concert at the local Fox Theatre. Ratatat was playing the venue (which if you have not heard them they are kick ass). As I was looking for a parking spot I noticed this parking lot open. As I drove through the gate I saw the faded sign that said “Tenant Parking Only” I figured it’d be fine for a couple of hours. I mean after all what do they do when they have guests? So I go to the concert where I feel like a chaperone at a high school dance. I think the average age in the venue was 15. I mean there was a girl there dressed in a hoodie that made her look like a teddy bear. I was considering asking her if she was filled with stuffing. I rocked out at the concert, enjoyed the awesome show, and inhaled enough 2nd hand haze that I just might fail my next drug test. When I made my way back to my car I saw the gates to the parking lot were closed. “Eh, no big deal I figured. I’ll just hop the fence and drive out.” WRONG! I hopped the fence (mind you it was a 8ft high rod iron fence from which I now have a big bruise on my thigh from resting my legs on the pointed tops) started my car and drove to the gate only to find that the gates were not motion activated. You had to actually have a gate controller of some sort to open the gates. SUCK! “Now what am I going to do? Oh, I know. I’ll just leave my car here for the night and come back in the morning when the gates are going to be open. No big deal.” I walked the 2miles home and then finally went to bed around 2am. (I had a book I just had to finish) I get up the next morning put on my jogging clothes and take a quick jog down to my car. GUESS WHAT?? The gates weren’t open. CRAP!!! I walked around the building to see if anyone was around that could open that gate. No one. I soon realized that the parking lot was for the Masonic Lodge, which meant that the parking lot probably was only open when they had meetings. LAME! That meant I would have to wait till the next meeting session which wasn’t until I think Wednesday. What would I do in the mean time? Hitchhike? Ride my bike? Find a homeless man to be my rickshaw for the weekend and use Pay Day candy bars as currency? Lucky for me I didn’t have anywhere to go and so wasn’t too worried about finding a ride. I walked back home and spent the rest of the morning doing chores around the house. That afternoon I met up with some friends at the county fair which lucky for me wasn’t too far from where I lived. Not so lucky for me was I walked 30min in the wrong direction, then found out the only public access point was on the other side of the fairgrounds and that is was 105 outside. It took me an hour to finally make it to the fair and by the time I got there I could feel the sweat pouring down my back and the blisters forming on the bottoms of my feet. None the less I toughed it out and walked around the fair for 5 hrs trying to make it look like I wasn’t limping from the pain I was in. After the fair the guys I was with were kind enough to let me tag along with them to a birthday party and said they would take me home after the party was over. When we arrived at the house I excused myself to the bathroom and jumped up on the counter to assess the damage to my feet. After I washed off the black dust I found the blister on my left foot was about the size of a quarter and on the right was the size of 2 quarters side by side. I also had blisters on my heels and a little one on the inside of my right foot. I was in bad shape. The ones on the bottoms of my feet were right on the ball of my feet between my big and 2nd toe. It made walking nearly impossible. I had to walk on the edges of my feet the rest of the night, any opportunity I had to sit and rest I took the chance. When I got home I hobbled into my bathroom and popped all the blisters. The clear fluid shot out of them because the pressure was so great. The next day at church I tried to wear the most padded sandals I had and avoid standing whenever possible.
Monday I rode my bike to work praying that the gates would be open so I could move my car. Once again to my disappointment they were still shut. I actually didn’t mind riding my bike to work. The cool breeze in the morning was great. Other than having a slightly flat tire the ride was completely enjoyable. However that afternoon on the way home it wasn’t so nice. The temperature had risen to 113 and I was sweating gallons on the bike. I once again stopped by the lot to once again see that the gates were still closed. I had tried calling the Masons but only received an answering machine and had even called the emergency contact only to have it ring forever and never an answering machine nor person answer. What kind of contact is that? What if I was really in an emergency? What if I had deciphered some ancient biblical text that lead to the secret grave of Jesus’ wife that contained a bottle of water that would heal anyone who drank it? HUH?!? Then what? The world would be screwed. I went to the front door hoping it would be open. I grabbed the handle and pulled. YES!! It was open. I ran down the little steps to grab my bike just in case I had to wonder around the building looking for someone when I turned back around I hear, “Can I help you?” “OH, yes. My sister parked my car in your lot on Friday and I really need to get it out. “ (yeah, that’s right I blamed my sister. I didn’t want them to think I was the idiot) “Was she supposed to be parking there?” ok, I’m going to stop diverge from the story right there for a bit. What kind of question is that? HELLO?!? Of course she/I wasn’t supposed to park there, that’s why I’m here asking for your help to get it out. DUH! If she were meant to have parked there then I wouldn’t be sweating my ass off riding my bike when it’s 115. I would have had her just open the gate and drive my car out. “You’re lucky we didn’t tow your car. Well let’s get that gate open. I didn’t realize I left this door open (commenting to his friend).” “Thank you.” I realized that apparently I was lucky at all that the door was open. I walked back to the lot saw the gate opening and quickly ran in, jumped in my car and drove it out. “Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.” I shoved my bike in my trunk and off I went. I swear I’m the world’s biggest idiot. In the last month I’ve ran out of gas, locked my keys in my car in the ignition with the radio running, almost ticketed for talking on my cell phone and now locking my car in a parking lot. Just in case you were wondering I’m running for the Darwin Awards. I do sure hope I win.

Caught Phone Handed

Yesterday I was driving up to one of my school campus projects and I received a phone call from one of the maintenance personnel that works for the school district. He wanted to tell me about how he had solved the problem of the dead lights in the bathrooms at the high school where we did work this summer. I didn’t really care to hear his accomplishment as it’s really just his job to deal with those types of problems, that’s what he gets paid for. So as I was sitting there at a red light listening to him ramble on and on about how they traced down the problem and found the frayed wire and blah, blah, blah, I hear this “Be careful” shouted outside my window. Figuring it wasn’t for me I just ignored it. I heard it again, “BE CAREFUL” wondering who was shouting I started to look around and when I turned to my left I see a guy sitting in his car with a Sheriff’s patch on the side of his sleeve. He looks at me points to the fact that I have my phone by my ear and smiles. “Oh my gosh!!” is what I mouth next with probably a look of panic and disbelief. I quickly look around wondering what I should do? Do I hang up on this guy whose story I wasn’t listening to anyway but still works for my client? Tell him to hold on and throw the phone down so I no longer have it in my hands? Throw the phone out the window? I make an embarrassed chuckle to myself and look back over at the cop. He says, “Don’t worry about it, just be careful” I soon realized that he was in his personal vehicle and probably didn’t want to deal with writing a ticket. After all it’s illegal to be talking on your cell phone in CA while driving unless it’s a hands free device (I think). The fact that I still have license plates from AZ probably helped but it could have been a ticket for sure had the guy really wanted to enforce the law. I drove off with my phone still in hand and quickly ended the call. Lesson learned if you’re going to talk on your cell phone make sure you’re not sitting next to a cop, which would be bad. I guess I better go buy a hands device for my phone. I hear if you strap a big rubber band to your head and slide the phone underneath that counts as ‘hands free’. Maybe I’ll just use a sweat band.

Growing my own.....

I believe that i have stated previous that i kind of live in the ghetto which is true but also with that comes the fact that my maintenance guys are also ghetto. let's just say they aren't the best professionals i've ever met. it also doesn't help that i too work in construction so know shoddy work when i see it. i digress........earlier this summer my A/C unit wasn't working so i called the property management team and told them and then they called the owner who called his brother's cousin's nephew's sister-in-law's uncle to come fix my unit. (the toaster as before illustrated) well as it turns out they plugged a 110V unit in to a 240V outlet. which basically means the unit was toasted. Ha ha! see how that's funny? See it's the size of a toaster and then was toasted. get it? anyway when the guy was hear he says to me, "you have a bird in your A/C" "Um.......do you mean you can hear the birds in the trees just outside my window?" "No. There is a bird in your unit." "Ok.........CRAZY!" not really sure how there could be a bird IN my unit seeing as there really isn't space in there to build a nest and there is mesh behind the plastic fins but whatever i'm not fowl expert here. incidentally the guys forgot that my A/C needed to get fixed so it was about a week before they actually made an effort to fix it and even then it wasn't until i called and reminded them. So once again the confirmed the unit was toast (ha ha. still funny) and told me it needed to be replaced they pull it out of the wall and low and behold what do we find? a bird and a nest. yeah, turns out the crazy Mexican wasn't lying. well technically the bird wasn't in the unit but on the side of the unit where there was a space between the wall. anyway there it was sitting on it's eggs just waiting for it's little babies to hatch. Man, had i known that i would have brought that bird inside waited for the babies to hatch then train them to do household chores. Cinderella wouldn't have held a candle to me. it would have been great. they'd do my dishes, vacuum my floor, finish my taxes, dive bomb solicitors at my door. we could go on the road and do street performances with whistling. i would have been a millionaire. but instead the guys put the new unit in and i wasn't about to reach in the gap and risk getting avion bird flu from a wicked bird peck. Cardinal Kisses...........that's what our side show would have been called.