UnLucky 13...

I have to laugh. Of course you'll note that my post is coming this morning and not yesterday... and for good reason: yesterday was just awful!

Right after I finished excitedly gabbing to Jeff on the phone abut all the positive signs in my life, the proverbial shit hit that proverbial fan. Who is throwing shit at a fan anyway- and why on earth? Is it some curious toddler? Or maybe a mischievous chimpanzee-- I know they have a penchant for scatological shenanigans... or maybe a mentally insane inmate from some old fashioned asylum left to his own devices.

Anyway, after a long day of gardening* at 18 mesa road in the muggy drizzle and mud and mosquitos, I had driven Mum to Shaws west side to get her prescription filled at Osco Pharmacy- but asked to wait in the car while she ran her errand on account of my filthy, ragamuffin-y state of dishabille. I dropped her off right at the door saying: "I'll be ... somewhere!" and went off insearch of a parking spot with a good view of the door so I might swing over and pick her up, rather than have my infirm mother search me out in a huge parking lot in the rain.

With no good spots available near the door I decided to park wayyyyyyy at the Belmont St. sdge of the parking lot with my front end pointed right at Shaws so that I could see her the minute she came outside. I put my keys in the same position we do at the drive-in movies**: all the way back so that the radio and wipers can be on but I'm not draining the battery.

I cheerfully chatted with jeff about his new job, Aaron's newfound zeal for culinary school and my auspicious discovery of the 7leaves on our prosperity tree and finally I spotted Betty's ensemble emerge into the dim of the afternoon drizzle: Red shirt, pink shorts, red shoes. Typical Betty :)

Quickly saying my goodbyes to Jeff I turned the keys to start the engine. It felt funny. I must've done it wrong... I turned them back to start and tried again. nothing. clickclickclickclick SERVICE ENGINE SOON in bright orange. dingdingding my seatbelt isn't on. Try again. CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK bongbongbong emergencybrakeison.

Then nothing. Nada. Zip. The radio, which had reset in this tumult was not coming on at all. It wouldn't even click and tell me threatening things on the dash. It dinged faintly and then stopped even dinging... Oh shit.

I hopped out of White Thunder (My Buick's Affectionate Nomicker) half-jogged to meet my Mum wayyyyy at the other end of the lot where she stood peering out from her dry vantage in a curious\concerned way.

Keep in mind that I look a mess. I borrowed one of Betty's t-shirts to garden in, a dayglo yellow monstrosity with puffy roses and lillies which sparkled and read something like: 'Love, Sweet Love' in scrolling script (also dusted with sparkles). My jeans, which were crusted with mud at the cuffs and a good way up my calf from gardening, were now soaking up the puddles in the parkinglot like they were made from tericloth instead of denim. My hair, which was filthy at the start of the day, now had mud and probably a leaf or two, and was pulled back into two ponytails using rubber bands*** and still was plagued by persistent wispy strands who insisted on rebelling and making me look as disheveled as possible. And my hands? After a good scrubbing at the house before we left they looked better- which is to say they were so brown and muddy it would have been inadvbisible to eat any fingerfood.

Of course I had never planned on having to get out of the car.

Now my just-out-of-the-hospital-mother has to either trek with me across the puddly-est parking lot in christendom (are we in christendom? I just finished reading a book on the crusades and I like the way it sounds) or stand there dry but lonely at the shaws entrance. with a "this will be a story to tell" she sets out with me.

We hope, somehow, that giving White Thunder a minute or two alone will somehow leave her in a better state- as if she were a spoiled teenager at her semi-formal who'd just had a moment of hysterical rage at seeing another girl wearing HER dress and "needed a minute" in the hallway by the gym to curse and ask "why me" and then psych herself up with "I look better in it than she does anyway" before returning to the cafetorium for dancing and snide remarks.

It turns out NO. That does not work on Buicks. White Thunder didn't need a minute. She needed a miracle. She was DEAD. done. this parrot was no more.

Shit.

Dad couldn't come get us because he can't drive with a busted driving foot. Michelle couldn't come because she was at Canobie lake park. Pippi was at work. Aaron was in New Hampshire making deliveries. We were pretty well screwed.

Parking way at the back of the lot may have been smart for spotting Madre, but it sure seemed dumb for getting stranded! Luckily, however, it left us alot closer to the Midas across the street who I called up and asked if they could give me a battery.

They sent this big clod of a man over to give us a jump- an action I was highly dubious of-- she didn't sound like the battery had died, she sounded DEAD AS A DOORNAIL!!!

But she took the spark and across the street we went for a new battery.

And an ALTERNATOR!!!!?????!!!!!????

I couldn't help feeling fucked-over.

But I forked up the money I didn't have to give for an ALTERNATOR and a BATTERY TOO!

And, wet and miserable, we waited............ and waited........ and waited......

It was Mum's naptime AND she's had to give up coffee AND she's quit smoking cold turkey AND we didn't even have a decent magazine to read. Mum skimming through 'Black Men's Business Magazine' was enough to make my mouth lift in half-a-smile, but anyway...

After an hour or so Mum finally screwed up enough nerve to change the channel on the big old tv in the waiting area, an ancient model of some unknown asian electronics brand on which somebody had carefully written with permanent marker the letters HDTV.

We ended up on Peter Brady's gameshow based on trivial persuit. I love quiz shows so this might have been the highlight of this pretty lousy experience. Excepting that gameshows make me hate stupid people and worry about the atate of the MAerican education system of which I am pecoming a part in the fall!!!

When Pippi got out of work she responded to my urgent text and set out to come take Mum home.

Half hour, 45 minutes later she pulls up and wouldn't you know they finished my car at exactly the same moment? ahhhhhhhhh, life. I gotta hand it to that curious toddler\mischievous monkey\raving lunatic, but that was some sweet timing!

Pip took Mum home and I was free to go home to shower and crash. I thought about but didn't have the physical nor spiritual energy to swing by the house on Arlington street real quick before heading home to 160 south main.

I felt so bad for Mum- what a way to spend an afternoon. I felt so bad for my pitiful bank account- what a way to get raped and robbed! And I felt a little disheartend at the idea that I may have jinxed all my good luck by speaking of it aloud.

Later, after eating all the food I shouldn't, I asked Aaron why he thoght I ran into such bad luck after finding the good luck leaves. He said "It means that there's no such thing as Luck."

I looked at him with a pitying, skeptical face that I imagine a priest gives to those who don't believ in God. I'm way to Irish to ever stop believing in Luck. I reconcile my Un-Lucky day to it being the 13th--- though not a friday.

My mother says- and probably so does yours- "It never rains but it pours". Amen. It surely does.


*****************************NOTES**************************

* Gardenig is only a loose term for what I was doing out there. What I was doing could be more closely akin to hacking through a jungle with a Machete. "Clark Gable in Magambo" Dad said. I was tackling the weeds, which have been allowed to grow all year. They were often taller than me and they were all very wet and sluggy and many had stubborn roots. I filled 8 lawn bagas and only made it as far as the rose garden section. I wonder when I'll stop calling it the rose garden? All but two rosebushes (of the original 16) have long since died and I've planted lots of other types of flowers there... but that's what I call it!

**Aaron and I enjoy going to the Drive-in movies in Mendon MA. We highly reccommend this experience! $20.00 for a carload. brilliant. Anyway, to prevent your car from killing the battery they instruct you to turn it all the way back toward you, past start, and into the position where you can listen to the radio without fear!! So this DID NOT, absolutely DID NOT kill my battery.

***I cut my hair short so that I wouldn't be able to pull it into a ponytail. I realized that bI am so lazy and impatient when it comes to my hair that its default state had become the ponytail. I wanted to be an adult woman with a hairstyle, not an anti-style.

Of course it is august in MASS and I was gardening. I wanted my hair out of my face and off my neck. So I improvised some jedi-looking situation with two rubberbands. What an atrocious way to be in public.

sigh.