Sarah Loses it Over an Emissions Test.

 This week I had to get my emissions test run on the mighty Cube before I could renew my license plates.

What a scam.  The whole license plate renewal thing is such a scam that lately has started to smell, to me anyway, like it's time to go dump some tea in Boston Harbor. 

But now's not the time for that soapbox.

With emissions, since I don't work a traditional schedule, it's never really been an issue. I go in, I sit for ten minutes maybe and watch the TV in the waiting area, and I'm out.  Bing, bang, boom.  No fuss no muss.

But lately I've been working a bit later in the day and Monday (when I went) was a sort of national holiday.  (Schools were off, there was no mail, just enough stuff was closed to be an annoyance to the rest of us who were just trying to move through our days.)  When I got to the emissions place I was already a tad annoyed because 1) It was raining SUPER HARD and I do not enjoy driving in a hard rain and 2) I was hungry because I don't eat lunch these days until 2 and it was 2 but I decided to push lunch until I got done with emissions. It never takes more than ten minutes, so no biggie. Right?

Would I be blogging if this ended with "it was no biggie?"

I got to the place and the guy at the counter took my paperwork and my keys and told me that I had three people ahead of me. This seemed odd, but okay, still no biggie. I mean, given how fast they do these tests, I figured 20 minutes tops.

So I sat down, and read a PEOPLE magazine. It was a winner because there was an interview with Rick Springfield. NICE!

Would I be blogging if this ended with me reading an interview with Rick Springfield?

After reading the magazine cover to cover I looked around and realized that no one in the room had moved. I'd been there now 20 minutes and NO ONE HAD MOVED.  Oh, and the TV was NOT on.

But next to me was a father/daughter pair. The daughter looked like she was bout 15...and had a mouth on her like a salty 12 year old.  I know this because the two of them argued, loudly, and about pretty much every stupid thing on earth.

I mean, my kids and I get loud when we're discussing politics, religion, football, you know, the important stuff.  But these two...

Well they were arguing about bowling in Georgia.

What I gathered from their noisiness was the following:

1) The girl did not like her mother, her mother never made time for her, and the girl was not about to call her mother for anything because, and I quote, "I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO SEE MY OWN MOTHER."

2)  The girl needed.wanted/must HAVE a mani/pedi before this mystical trip to the bowling alley in Georgia.

3) The girl was NOT, under any circumstances, going to bowl in Gerogia.  Unless one of her siblings or her father slipped her some adult beverages while doing so. (Father said he would not, but suggested she ask her sister.)

4)  Father said she needed to go shoe shopping and get some shoes for whatever it was they were going to be doing in Georgia. (Other than bowling.)  Girl said she had tried on EVERY SHOE that sparkled and the only ones that sparkled in all the land were SANDALS and she was NOT NOT NOT going to wear SANDALS.  (And this was after she demanded the pedicure.)

5)  Daughter asked for a doctor's appointment several times. Father told her to talk to her mother.  Daughter refused. See note #1 for her reason. This was like their break in every new topic they'd come back to the doctor's appointment.

6)  Daughter wanted spam and mac and cheese for dinner.  Father asked if they had any in the house. Daughter said no. Father said she should ask mother for it. See #1.


But after a while, even these two fell silent, worn out from arguing and waiting. 

I'd been there 40 minutes.

My phone, the "new" one I got when Hubby upgraded his, died.  This is significant because I've had this phone now for a week and either I'm the dumbest human alive or this phone hates me.  It's a 5S, which means I now have Siri, but that hag won't talk to me...unless I do not summon her. Hubby says it's because I hold the button down TOO LONG.

There was NEVER a TOO LONG thing for my 4.  Because there was no Siri to summon.

Oh, and this new phone will sometimes have me randomly typing texts in foreign languages.  I don't know how. But suddenly everything I'm texting is misspelled, and I realize the 5S thinks I'm typing in French....badly.

And this phone does NOT hold a charge at all.  So it died while I was waiting. which mean, no TV, no phone, no book, and I've read the one magazine.

I've been there 50 minutes.

That's when I saw the one guy, THE ONE GUY who was doing the emissions testing. And he rather resembled a TV character from my childhood:  Tim Conway's "Oldest Man."

This gentleman moved very, very slowly. I mean, he had to have been at least 87 years old, (It's nice to see able bodied elders getting out there and enjoying life...) bowlegged, overweight, and oh yeah, his pants were making that long, sad, slow sag down his flat old man butt to his non existent hips. Next stop...the floor.  Only the bow in his legs seemed to be keeping us all from the world's most unpleasant strip tease.

His whole job was to pick up the paperwork on each car, find the car, drive it into the garage, run the emissions test, then drive the car out and park it next to the building, walk in, call the person's name and turn over the keys.

There were four people ahead of me when I got there.  After waiting an hour, there were still three cars ahead of me.  Including the bickering father/daughter team.

At the hour ten mark I got up. I couldn't sit there any longer. I couldn't walk outside because it was still pouring, so I wandered the very small "lobby" of the shop.  I read everything they had there.  What would you like to know about all weather tires?  

Having watched "The Oldest Man" closely I knew, finally, he was headed for the Mighty Cube.

Sort of.

I guess it's my fault. I have a car that's not all the common.  It sort of sticks out in a crowd.  It's easy to spot. Which is why it took "The Oldest Man", and I'm not kidding here, FOUR MINUTES to locate my car in a row of twelve vehicles.  He walked all the way to the wrong end of the line, looking at each and every vehicle, and then walked all the way to the end, PASSING MY CAR, before he bounced back and found the Cube.

He got into the Cube.

What he did next is a bit of a mystery, but bear with me.

Fifteen minutes after that he hobbled into the shop, looked at my paperwork, and seemed befuddled. Prior to this he'd been calling out the first name of the person on the paperwork.  Apparently, my last name confused him...he stared at the paperwork. I knew it was my car and at this point I was sweating, my skin was burning (which happens when I'm feeling hot and stressed and quite possibly menopausal, but most definitely premenstrual.)  and all I wanted to do was BE OUT OF THERE.

"That's my car," says I.

He looks at me as if I had just started speaking Swahili.  "Bradley?  Thomas? Sarah?"

"Yes, yes. My car.  My cube."

Still clearly wondering if he was doing the right thing "The Oldest Man" handed me the keys and my pass paperwork and I fled in to the rain.

Then it got weird.

Since my car accident in 2012 I've been very particular about how my mirrors and seat in my car are set.  I don't like it when other people move either one, although I'm used to Hubby moving my seat because I sit UNDER the steering wheel and he does not.  But even he doesn't mess with my mirrors.

"The Oldest Man" however, felt the need to adjust everything in my car. Seat, mirrors, and....

AND MY MINI AARON RODGERS KEY CHAIN HANGING FROM MY REAR VIEW MIRROR.

(I knew he'd messed with it because it kept rattling against the rear view mirror whereas when I put in in the car, I made sure it wouldn't rattle.)

I adjusted my seat and my other mirrors all the while cursing out "The Oldest Man" for messing with my stuff.  And a moment from the movie "Moulin Rouge" played over and over in my head.

So I get home and I'm a a furious lather over the fact that I was convinced the guy had attempted to steal my mini Rodgers. That might seem way off base, but let's review:

1) I'd been trapped in a waiting room for over an hour trying to do something that should have taken fifteen minutes.

2) I was starving.

3)  Old guy had messed with my mirrors and my seat when all he had to do was pull my car into a garage and pull it out.  I do that every day with family members' cars and I don't touch any of their stuff.

4)  Mini Aaron rattled all the way home, which, as my Sunday School kids will tell you, constant tapping or clicking or rattling sounds annoy me.

5)  I was hot and itchy from the stress of all of the above and when my skin feels like that all I want to do is scream.

So I storm into the house, fully loaded for bear and Hubby happens to be home.  "How was emissions?" he asks innocently.

That's when the flood gates open and I pour forth at least two minutes worth of rage and very blue language. I end the tirade with "And I think the old dude tried to steal Mini Rodgers because he kept rattling all the way home."

Hubby, ever a patient man, and yes, sadly used to these outbursts of mine  (I do not deal well with having to wait long periods of time in case you haven't picked up on that.) waited until I stopped yelling and he said, "I think Mini Rodgers was rattling because of me. The last time I drove your car I lowered your rear view mirror. You probably just adjusted it without raising it.  That's why he was rattling."

By now I'm breathing oxygen.  My skin has almost stopped burning.  And I realize that yes, I just lost my mind all because of my emissions test.  Total first world problem.

"You owe that old guy an apology." Hubby says with a grin.

"Sorry old guy!" I say to the air.  "Sorry I thought you were going to steal mini Rodgers. But NOT sorry I was mad because you messed with everything else in my car."

So the point of the story is that in two years when I have to do this all again, I'm not going to go on President's Day.

Yes, that is my ONLY take away from the story! 









                               

Oh, wait! I DO have a Valentine's Day Story!

Those of you who know me know that, while I've been known to write a romance novel or two, (Four) I'm really not that into Valentine's Day.

I can't tell you where it started. I mean, in spite of my less than awesome high school career, I do not recall having any serious heartbreak on or around this Day of Love. I just remember thinking "Who needs it?"

College years, again, for the most part I had a date for V-Day, so you know, I haven't a clue why I've been a warrior against celebrations.

And then I remembered, this morning, a story from my first year of marriage, and I realized I had a fun story.

Here we go:

It was the first Valentine's Day after got married, way back in 1991.  It was a snowy day, but I wasn't worried about getting to my job as a data entry clerk for a medical equipment company.  After all, I was driving the BRAND NEW 1990 HONDA ACCORD Hubby and I bought right before we got married.  I would be super safe on the roads.

I should mention, the Accord was the ONLY car we owned. Hubby worked at the school across the parking lot from our house and our thinking was, hey, he could walk to school and I could drive and we'd NEVER NEED a second car.

We were idiots.

Now, I could have taken the interstate to my job. We lived a minute from the exit and my job was a minute from the exit. I would have arrived safe and sound and there would be no story.

Which is probably why I instead decided to drive the back roads.

I mean, what my actual thinking that morning was involved this thought, "This is Valentine's Day and I know Hubby and I have NEVER in our years together, celebrated it, and I know I've been militant in my hatred of the day, but I should get him a card. And I can stop at the grocery store on the way to work if I take the county roads instead of the interstate.

Which I did.

I'm an idiot.

So there was I was, cruising along on a snowy morning, the roads slippery and fun with snow and a little thing we here in the Northern lands call "black ice."  Which I didn't see.  Because you don't see black ice.

The next thing I remember was spinning...a lot.  I spun and spun and spun and wondered just when I would hit something to stop the spinning.

Then I did and I heard a tremendous crash, like the back window of the car had shattered.  I opened my eyes and I realized I was in a ditch, facing the wrong way on the road. I'd hit two trees, one full grown and one small one and thanks to these trees being on the drivers' side I was not able to open the door.  I was also not able to get out of the ditch.

Now this is there it gets good. See, in 1991, cell phones weren't a thing people had.  So here I'm sitting on a pretty deserted county road and I don't have a way to call for help.  I manged to crawl out of the passengers' side (and into about three feet of new snow, which filled my shoes) and get up out of the ditch. I did NOT look at the car because I knew I'd killed it.

The first house I got to didn't answer their door.  The second house did and the lady very nicely let me use the phone to call my husbands' school and say, "I killed the car."

Not knowing EXACTLY where I was, I gave him my coordinates as best I could and then staggered back to the car.  

Now on his end, Hubby had to borrow a car from one of the other teachers, because, again WE ONLY HAD THE ONE CAR.  So it took him a bit of time (let's just say the teachers at that school were less than charitable...but that's another story) to get to me.  

"I killed it." I said to him. "I shattered the back window."

He got out of the borrowed car and looked at our.  "No, you didn't. It's fine.  Look."

Friends to this day I have no idea what made that shattering noise, but every window in that vehicle was intact.

Hubby drove the car up and out of the ditch. The door was dented, but I could get in and out.  He suggested I go home, but I felt FINE and didn't want to miss a day of work for something so silly.

Again, I'm an idiot.

I drove to work, a little late now. I stopped in and explained to my boss why I was late. Now Dave was a very nice man, probably one of the kindest bosses I ever had.  And he, too, suggested I go home.  I said, no I was FINE. I mean, it's not like I was tarring roofs, I was a data entry clerk.

So I got to my desk, turned on my spiffy 1991 computer, and while I was waiting for it to heat up  (because that's what you did in 1991) I started crying.  Right there at my desk.  I sobbed for a few minutes and realized this was not going to stop any time real soon. So I turned off my computer, and went back to my boss and sobbed that I needed to go home and, hey, could he drive me?

Being a great guy, Dave did, and he had another guy from the Quality Control department follow us so he could get a ride back to work.  They dropped me and my dented car at home and then went back to work.

Now, that's enough of a story. I mean, no cell phones, so I didn't tell Hubby I was home until he saw the car in the drive way during recess and figured it out.  But there's more to it.

See, my boss was a nice guy, but my car did NOT look all the banged up.  And I don't blame him for his next move at all.  He and the other guy from QC drove back to the office by way of my accident route.  I don't think and hour had passed, so the skid marks and the spot in the ditch where I landed were still there.  They were impressed that I hit two trees and didn't destroy the car. They were MORE impressed, however, the I completely missed hitting the transformer box that stood about six feet away from my spot in the ditch.

Dave told me the next day, when I pulled it together enough to go to work, "If we are ever under a scud missile attack, I want to stand next to you."  (This was during the first Gulf War.)

And THAT, my friends, is my Valentine's Day story.

Oh, and NO, Hubby never DID get that card.

If Sarah's at a Concert, You Know Something's Getting Gross.

Good afternoon!

First of all...where did January go?  I blogged about New Year's Resolutions (Which I'm actually keeping pretty well, thank you) and then BOOM it's Ground Hog's Day?

How did that happen?

While we're on the topic of the Ground hog, remember, today is the day I get to start yelling at those of you who have not taken down your Christmas stuff.  (And those few of you who still have HALLOWEEN items up UNDER your Christmas stuff.  Seriously...take it down!)  I realize it's going to be super cold up here in the Upper Midwest, but suck it up. We've had wildly warm temps all through January...take it DOWN!

There, now that we have that out of the way, let me tell you about my most recent concert mishap.  

Hubby did good for Christmas and got us Trans Siberian Orchestra tickets for the end of December. I LOVE TSO, I have most of their albums (and duplicates of many, one for the car, one for the shelf in the house) so going to their concert is always a win.

I love going for many reasons, mostly because it's a concert sponsored by the local heavy metal rock station AND the Hallmark channel. So it's fun to watch the grandparents with their little grandchildren thinking they're having some nice holiday family fun when suddenly they're surrounded by face melting guitar solos and pyrotechnics.  Fortunately, TSO knows their audience. They put the Holiday stuff in the front and then give the grannies time to leave the arena before the real audio damage is done.

As I've gotten older I've liked large crowds less and less, and I've liked sitting next to people even less.  I find myself going to 8 AM matinee movies because I don't want to sit next to anyone.

That might seem nuts, but let's review my previous concerts:

Rick Springfield concert in Wisconsin Dells:  Sat next to a nice lady in a wheelchair, but in front of a woman who dumped whiskey sours on us all night.

Rick Springfield concert in Madison:  Sat in front of a woman who "didn't really like Rick, just liked "Jesse's Girl" and hadn't been "on  a date" in ten years.  She got so hammered on wine she dumped wine on the floor, making our shoes sticky, and then she had to be carried out by her hubby before the show ended.

Colin Hay concert in Milwaukee: Sat behind two guys (we were in the second row, I thought I'd managed to avoid this) who spent the entire concert getting up, blocking our view, and getting more beer.

Norah Jones concert in Milwaukee: Stood behind two women in line for the bathroom who griped about how the line at the men's room was too long and men shouldn't have their own restroom at all. These were the same women who said they didn't like football, and had spent much of the Packers' Superbowl in New Orleans in the bathroom.  It was all I could do not to slap them both.

These are just a few of my concert mishaps and negative human interaction. But TSO is really a family friendly thing so I figured the amount of alcohol infused nonsense would be much less.

I was wrong.

We got there a bit early so we could be settled in our seats and get a couple bottles of water BEFORE the show started.

Oh how I wish the people next to us thought the same.

I'm not going to comment on the number of people who walked in our line of site to go get more drinks.  I mean, what's the point of going to a concert if you're just going to be leaving the arena every ten minutes to get more drinks?  Buy the CD and stay home!

However, the people next to us were a special kind of concert mess.

1) They got there late.

I don't mean a little late, like oops they got hung up at security. No I mean they got there 40 minutes after the concert started. It was long enough for me to feel confident that the three seats next to me were not taken and therefore we could pile our winter coats and stuff on one of the seats.

When they came lumbering in OF COURSE they didn't take the two seats away from us. Nope. they sat in the two right next to us, giving THEM the buffer chair and forcing me to cram all our stuff under my chair.

2)  They smelled of beer and cigarettes.

They'd clearly been pregaming heavily both with the beer and with the smoking just so they wouldn't have to leave their seats.  I don't mind a little beer and smoke smell, but this was like sitting next to a case of lit Camels that had been rolled in beer.

3)  But that wasn't all...

Dude sitting right next to me had apparently tried to cover the smoke and beer smell by a) NOT SHOWERING FOR AND EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME 9like a month) and b) THEN DRENCHING HIMSELF IN COLOGNE.

The body odor and the heavy cologne were WORSE than the smoke and beer.  It was the perfect storm of smells that would make one gag, made all the more stronger by the aforementioned pyrotechnics which heated up the arena.

It was all I could do not to gag.

Now, TSO breaks their concerts up into three parts, and give concert goers a couple times to leave before the end.  That sounds weird, but it's a good long concert and not all their stuff is for everyone.  The people at the end of our row left after the first hour, leaving six seats to the right of Stinky empty. Do you think they moved so that we could all breath air that wasn't clouded with alcohol and Drakkar?  (Or English Leather...Polo...whatever it was it was too much!)

Of COURSE NOT!

Would I be blogging about this if they had?

Nope, those two super smelly latecomers stayed until the bitter end. They never moved, they never went to use the restrooms or anything. They just sat next to me and sweat out horrible smells.


All that being said, I do love TSO and Hubby and I had a blast the whole night.  I just had to share that once again I do not leave a concert unscathed!