So I decide to finally get the car door fixed this (Wednesday) morning. I figured that the problem is self-evident enough that I could get there when they open at 8, get an estimate and be out of there by the time I'm supposed to be at work, which I've established to be 9. At the very least I wouldn't have to miss out on too much time that I'll need to make up the rest of the week.
Ah, didn't turn out to be the case. Guess I should have made it known that I wanted only an estimate, but after I got there (like, seven minutes after 8, I swear) the guy took my car ... and I waited. For over an hour. I finally got it back around 15, 20 minutes after 9. However, they didn't just diagnose the car but they also fixed it. Had to use epoxy and MacGuyver some clips or something, but they put the door back together. That saves me a second trip I planned on making next week. And after begging my supervisor for some slack, she was OK with me coming in late due to "car trouble." I only have to make up a half-hour, and hopefully she'll be cool with that, too.
The only thing I have to worry about is the tape they put around the door to keep it together so the epoxy has time to bind together. There are several long stretches of tape, and I was told it had to be on for 24 hours, so I can take it off first thing tomorrow morning. Good. All I have to do now is wait and make sure my parents don't see it, lest they ask questions. I did a similar thing when some fuckers broke and took my driver's-side side mirror. It was taken when I was parked in downtown Minneapolis when I went to see an MLS Cup on a Sunday night. I brought it into the same auto body shop the next day, where they said they would contact me when they got a replacement driver's-side side mirror. They called me the next day saying they got one, and I told them to take the whole day to color it the right color. The afternoon of the day after that I came in and got my car back, with new mirror, in an hour. And my folks do not know because then they left for work before me and got back home before me. It helps that I was able to park in the garage, lest one of them wandered out to the driveway for some reason and saw the busted mirror.
That is not possible these days; for dinner Father regaled me on all the stuff he notices with the neighbors, since he has nothing else to do, and the garage is now stuffed with my sister's SUV and my parents' dream car that they never will get around to fixing. However, they don't actually leave the house much. If anything, they put-put around the backyard, making dinner and tending to their garden. They'll get out to buy groceries and stuff, and of course they need to get the mail and mow the lawn, but once they know they'll be home for good, they tend to keep the front door shut. For that reason I initially didn't think I needed to worry about the tell-tale tape when I got home.
But then, during dinner, they mentioned something about garbage pick-up. Oh, crap. Many weeks ago they wanted me to look up the companies that pick up the trash in this city. I didn't hear anything after that, and I thought that's because we put out such little garbage that we could just run and dump it at the nearest gas station. Would save us money not needing to subscribe to a garbage company, too. But they told me that the bags have to be put out before tomorrow morning and the company will in turn give us new customers a new bin.
Now I can envision them going out to put said bags at the end of our driveway, go back up and, while making a beeline to the front door, see all this tape on the side of my door. Then they'll go upstairs and interrupt me watching So You Think You Can Dance to ask, "What's the tape on your door? Where did you go to fix that? How much did it cost? Are you throwing away money again?? Why can't you just dump the car and use your sister's?? What is wrong with you?!?! WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE??? YOU'RE THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD AND YOU'RE PISSING YOUR MONEY AWAY!!!" And then I'll yell and throw things at them, and our planned road trip (oops, have I not told you that?) will be aborted, and I'll have to worry about being thrown out again.
There is one thing that could have prevented this. Our driveway is three cars wide. If I nestled my car right next to theirs, they would be going down the driveway down my car's passenger/non-tape side. So there's a chance Father or Mother would not notice the tape when they come back up. They certainly might, and there's always a chance they throw something into their minivan, which they sometimes do after dinner. But if I knew they ordered garbage service, or if I heard the really faint voice in the back of my head to park in the middle of the driveway just in case, I could have tried this and, maybe, just maybe, I could have stayed home. Instead I parked in my usual spot, the spot closest to the front door, right under the big tree. So Father and/or Mother would walked inbetween our cars and see the tape right in front of them.
Only I could try and get something done and run into this unusual, if not extraordinary, event that could cause such unnecessary upheaval in my life. You've got to be kidding me!
I tried asking if I can put the bags out for them -- you know, just tryin' to be a good son. ;) But they said they'll take care of it after they get done cleaning up after dinner and preparing for tomorrow's dinner. With that tactic getting shot down, I resorted to Plan B: Going out under the excuse that I need to check something "at the library," then coming back right around dusk, well after they put out the bags because, to them, being outside after dark is scary.
Told them that, and they were cool. Was planning to be out only 30-45 (I left at ten to 8), but I knew that I would take longer, because I always do. I actually was going to go to the library ... to blog about this, actually. But then I thought, well, I did get an Amazon certificate, and I do need a new TV -- why not go through Consumer Reports' recommendations for TVs and write them down again (because I had written them down and checked them out physically at Best Buy before)? So I went to the closest library to me (now that the one that's actually closest to our house is closed for renovations), only to walk up at a minute before eight and see some young punk start locking the doors because on Wednesdays they close at 8.
These are the times when the next county over does it better than mine. They're quite more urbane, too. (That's for another time, if I ever get around to it.) Their libraries during the week stay open until 9. I'll go there -- and that's good enough of an excuse to say that I'll be out longer than the 30-45 minutes I said I'll be out, even if I knew I would be out for more than an hour regardless.
So on a night when I thought I would stay home and enjoy watching SYTYCD and then the end of the first game of the Stanley Cup Finals, I instead kind of ran away and hid, looking for TV recommendations and blogging -- all to ensure that my parents don't see the tape job on the side of my door.
And they didn't, since I came home just before 9, almost 75 minutes after I left. They neatly collected three or four small plastic bags (all of which could be crammed into a gas station trash can just fine) at the end of the driveway behind where their minivan is parked. That means that they have no reason to go outside for the rest of the night. And so, barring the incredibly unprecedented, they will never know that I had my driver's-side door fixed, mwah-hah-hah-haaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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