Tired? I'm Right There With You
a.k.a.
[one dastardly long day ... I'm sure you've had one of those]
Benjamin Kissell
Millions of smiles and millions of miles ... yet today?
I am neither smiling nor looking forward
to going that extra mile with these tires ...
You ever have one of those days?
I'm sure you have. One of those soul-shredding, brain-draining, mind-numbing, emotion-testing days where all you want to do, at the end of it, is collapse into a warm bubble bath and sip some fine, fine Wal-Mart Moscato until your eyelids droop and you nod off into a much-deserved rest ... your well-worn paperback copy of Bright Lights, Big Ass (or whichever all-purpose entertaining read you default to) slipping onto your fuzzy bath mat beside the tub.
Instead, you end up sipping cold coffee while you hope against hope that it's bitter blackness will not only keep you awake and lucid, but non-snappy and head-bite-off-y towards employees and customers alike until you can go collapse (face first) into your cold bed.
Yeah, I was pretty sure you had.
Today? I am definitely having one myself.
......................................................
It all began innocently enough - as it always does.
Ever since I'd dropped REDACTED on car repairs back over the Christmas holidays [why yes, the perfect Christmas/New Year's gift to myself were these repairs *eyeroll*] and gotten my car back, it'd been a little shaky in the steering and handling. Being a complete car newb [as I've mentioned before] I wrote this off as a 'new fixin's be new handlin's' and ignored it. That is, until my boyfriend [oops, fiance - still getting used to that] texted me the night before while I was at work.
John: My parents saw metal in your tires - you need new ones baby. Don't touch them!
to which I brilliantly replied
Me: I what? Huh?
Apparently, the reason the car had been shaking even more en route to work was because the steel underneath the rubber was EXPOSED DUE TO THE DETERIORATION OF THE FRONT TIRES!
*pause*
Were shredding. I'm going to let that sink in for you ... my tires?
With me so far?
Being the mature [read: it had to happen sometime, amiright?] person that I am, I asked John to join me in a run to Wal-Mart after my 9.5 hr shift at work was over and hunt down new tires.
Completely forgetting to note the size/pressure requirement/etc before entering the behemoth known as Tire Central we were swiftly overwhelmed and soon resorted to stilted Google searches on our phones for what would/wouldn't be an appropriate new tire for my Oh-God-Is-It-Really-That-Old Honda. After finding what I thought was an appropriate fit/size/etc I took the pragmatic approach of running outside (still exhausted and friggin' hungry, thank you) and trying to take a photo of my tire to make sure I got the right data.
Um. Apparently no one had informed me about how difficult it would be to take said photos in a SUPPOSEDLY well-lit parking lot. As it turns out, it's really bloody hard. After spending 10 minutes on my knees trying to capture the image (and possibly getting tetnis from the shard of rather grey-brown and unknown metal I was kneeling on) I finally had a half-decent pic.
Which of course wouldn't send. Not enough signal my ass.
'No need', I said to myself (rather smugly, if I may be so honest) 'I can just type down the numbers/letters and text them to John. Brilliant, I am!'
[Why I hadn't thought of this BEFORE kneeling for 10 minutes exhausting and frustrating myself is something I'll chalk down to low blood sugar.]
After hiking the impressive distance back between the main entrance and the Tire Center - the rough equivalent of two city blocks [or as my tired ass was calling it "Fuck this"] - I discovered that the tires we'd picked out had been wrong all along and the ones I wanted were the ones RIGHT THERE. The ones $20 more expensive.
Bucking myself up with promises of "Ooh, this will be easy - I can buy the tires and just install them myself! I am so smart! I shall save so much money!" and empty carbs [a.k.a. the fine, fine return of Swiss Cake Rolls to my diet and anything Reese's] I let John steer the cart on with the promise of tire switches in the morning.
......................
Some people bolster egos with booze ...
I'll stick with self-delusions and c0pious quantities of chocolate.
Cut to this morning.
Realizing that my smart economic choice was really inappropriate - what with all of the amazing and smug-inducing tools I used the last time I did this not being mine and living over in my Grandfather's garage - I plopped myself down on the couch and dialed Wal-Mart's number. The smug definitely evaporating in the already-too-damn-warm weather. Luckily, they promised that they could install the tires - both of them - for a paltry sum of $20 and a disposal fee of $3 for the old tires. GENIUS! Victory! #WINNING!
My optimism and foolish hopes were due to be sent askew because the sight greeting me as I stood in front of my Older-Than-Dirt-But-Still-Running Honda was a depressing one:
one of the two about-to-be-replaced tires had decided - in the time my in-laws had been out-and-back to BJ's - to go flat. This was no mere 'flattish flat'. No. This was 'IN-YOUR-FACE-MUTHA-FUCKA-SEE-HOW-FLAT-I-CAN-BE flat'. Thankfully, this wasn't something that some wonderful application of time, grease and father-in-law aid couldn't conquer.
Okay, despite the setback, I could handle this. I would be happy to slide my card through the machine paying the mere $23 when they were done. I was ready, willing and able to get on with my day and work this afternoon.
Of course, my afternoon ground to a halt while waiting for the Tire Gurus to get back to me:
My evening shift person wasn't feeling well and wasn't able to be there tonight. 'No problem', optimistic me said. 'Just get your other evening employee to fill in - he'll love the overtime! Everybody wins! Still #Winning!' And yet, unlike his usual enthusiasm for money, he did not leap at the chance. In fact, due to circumstances beyond his control ... well, he wasn't up to being in this evening either.
Well, fuckballs. What to do ... what to do ...
Between the distraction of laughing myself into an awkward public display of braying jackass laughs while reading some Laurie Notaro and the back-and-forth texts with my originally-covering-that-shift employee I soon had it solved: I would come in at 7pm and be there until 2am when he would be able to muster up the strength to be there. Success! Britney Spears-level-comeback here people!
So, of course, it was time for the Universe to kick me in the stomach again. ARGH!
The oh-so-kind Tire Guru sat me down to explain why he wasn't able to put the second tire on: apparently, in their zeal to get my car repaired back in January, my mechanics had not only forced the tire lug-nuts on, they had cross-threaded and possibly stripped two of them. In terms of car repairs, this isn't normally something to cry about (as it is often easily repairable) nor is it something to scoff at (as you cannot legally or safely drive without three solid ones). Being as this was out of their league repair-wise, they suggested I go over to the nice folks at TIRE STORE NAME REDACTED FOR FEAR OF LEGAL ISSUE who would be able to switch the lug nuts and I could come right back for the finished repairs.
Still, setback aside, I could soon be #WINNING! I had a plan of action; Charlie Sheen, eat your heart out. Of course, my plan of action didn't take into account the fact that today is the Busiest Day In The History of Forever at TIRE STORE NAME REDACTED FOR FEAR OF LEGAL ISSUE and the earliest they could see me would be tomorrow morning.
Deep breaths. Calming Breaths. Inward breaths that make me center myself ... chocolate center with a creamy peanut butter crunch ... *ahem* Snap back here, Benjamin.
The very nice young man at TIRE STORE NAME REDACTED FOR FEAR OF LEGAL ISSUE was very supportive and helped break down the various scenarios that could be wrong with the repairs and gave me a cost/expense line-by-line on it. In terms of cost it was somewhere between "pfft that's just one less meal in a restaurant" and "Oh gawdd, oh gawdd, the hemorraghing is going to kill me" ... suffice it to say, I was seeing red as my green was evaporating.
On the still-somewhat-shaky-because-only-one-of-the-needed-tire-repairs-was-done drive BACK over to Wal-Mart and the Tire Guru I made up my mind to pick up my tire and either drop off my car with my in-laws' preferred mechanic [35 years they've been going to them and never been swindled once] or throw a small hissy fit over the phone and demand my mechanics fix the problem for free "OR ELSE". [Can you guess which one it ends up being?]
Sadly, this plan of action hit yet another snag, what with the Tire Gurus losing my tire.
Yes, say it with me boys and girls; They - the Tire Gurus - had lost my friggin' expensive-enough-I-wasn't-eating-out-with-family-next-week new tire. I may or may not have blacked out before pasting a forced-Southern-charm smile on my face and politely requesting my tire appear. Pronto. [I would like mad props for neither spitting, screaming nor striking anyone during this scene ... I deserve them].
.........................................
The newer-than-new tire snugly in my trunk [no, they didn't find my originally bought tire, they just grabbed one off the wall ... how's that for a solution?], I slowly drove home to leave the car in the driveway until dropping it off for repairs in the morning after deciding to call and give my mechanic the best venting of why this was their problem and not mine possible. [Terse and short words are very effective when combined with a "you will fix it" attitude.] A nap - and chocolate - called to me a siren song. Something positive for me, since John was at work and we'd be missing each other until I crawled into bed tonight.
A nap will always be the perfect way to get a quick bolt of rejuvination. A nap after inhaling half a box of Swiss Cake Rolls is the perfect way to wake up with an extreme case of cotton mouth reminiscent of my most fabulous hangovers [the high points of my early 20's]. A nap, inhaling half a box of Swiss Cake Rolls and waking up to continue your already-too-long day is a guaranteed way to groan loud enough you scare your cat.
..............................................
Chocolate: sometimes the most comforting of friends
... while others, the great pretender delivering stronger cottonmouth
than a freshman mixer of trashcan punch and screwdrivers
The Universe, perhaps taking momentary pity, let the evening progress rather nicely. True, it was a busy time at work, but, it didn't promise to be insane or ri-fucking-diculous like it had been the last four days, either.
The hours smoothly tracked by; 7-8pm, 8-9pm, 9-10pm, 10-10:30pm ...
And when 10:30 rolled around the Universe - enough okay? KTHXBAI - gave me the big old middle finger and my still-sick employee called with a painful update: he wasn't going to be able to come in at all ... which set up the 11 hour shift for me as the perfect whipped-cream non-dairy [still lactose intolerant, thanks] topping to this fucktard of a day.
When I get home after dropping off my car at my mechanics WHO BETTER FIX THIS ALREADY AND DO IT FOR FREE and being up-and-running for a good 24-hours-plus straight my prize? Will be to crash into bed beside my wonderful, understanding, amazing, sweet, sometimes-snoring boyfriend [dammit, I mean fiance] for a whole four hours before I have to get up and do it all again.
It's enough to curl up in the fetal position and declare this a "Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" ... or maybe just to get a little hate on for the Tire Guru Gods.
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