The Ultimate Case of the Mondays

I have been super behind in blogging lately, all due to my crazy work schedule. But I had written this post a few weeks ago and I just didn't want to forget all that happened on this Monday from you-know-where. Even though this happened over a month ago, I thought it blog-worthy enough to be posted late! And thankfully it's a little funnier now than it was back then.

Here's how my May 16, 2011 played out:

Warning: If you are the type of person to judge when someone complains then I suggest you stop reading here. I had a pretty bad day and yes it could be worse, but this is my blog and I can write what I want - ha!

I'll start from the beginning. Brad wanted to go to the beach for his birthday weekend and it was all totally last minute because he didn't even think of the idea until late in the week when he realized his baseball team was going to be in the state playoffs either in Myrtle Beach or Sumter. I didn't really want to go because I'm a total homebody and I also hate doing things last minute. He promised he would take care of everything and he really did so off we went.

We have been to MB before in May and it was always perfect weather and very un-crowded so it's not a bad time to go at all. But this weekend was unusually cool because there were super strong winds every day. On Sunday I was a little fed up with getting pummelled by the wind so I decided to go get a pedicure somewhere. As I was getting ready to leave I had a little voice in my head telling me not to go because I wasn't that sure of where I was going to go and I don't really like driving in strange places. Why don't we listen to these voices?!!?

I proceeded to wreck our car by hitting a concrete pole in the parking garage when I was pulling out of the parking space. Such an idiot. Immediately my heart dropped into my stomach and I rushed out to see what I had done. There was a small scratch on the rubber over the tire and that was it! I was soooooo relieved and decided that it would probably be okay to go on because what could I do about it anyway? Wrong.

As I was driving out of the parking garage the steering wheel was turning all sorts of funny ways and I was actually finding it hard to drive the car straight. Great. I get the car on the road because I want to know if it was in my head, but I was obviously in denial. Some warnings came up on the screen basically saying something was wrong with the car and to drive it "moderately". Whatever that means. Back to the hotel I go.

After another short test drive and hours of trying to determine if the car was driveable we both agreed we should not drive it home. And we were supposed to leave the next day to go to the game that of course ended up not being in MB, but in Sumter - over two hours away. The closest dealership we could go to was in Conway so we made a plan to be there first thing in the am because we had a very tight timeline for Monday. We did some internet searches and decided that the warnings we saw meant that the alignment was off. Because internet searches are always so reliable we decided that must be the answer.

Next day comes and we get lost going to the dealership even though we've unknowingly driven past this same dealership probably a good thirty times in our lives. Fortunately we were seen rather quickly and find out that no, it was nothing to do with the alignment, but the steering rack was broken and almost bent, possibly plunging us to an untimely death by motor vehicle.

This is the gist of our convo with the service man:
Him: You drove this thing here?
Us: Yeah.
Him: How far?
Us: Well if you include the time we got lost...about an hour.
Crickets and eyes averted.
Him: Alignment? Where did you get that idea?
Smarty pants service man laugh.
Him: $4,000 estimate to fix the car.
Us: In the corner taking turns punching the wall (slight exageration).

We spent what seemed like an eternity battling it out with our insurance, but it was probably more like an hour to an hour and a half. I don't know if anyone else has had to deal with auto insurance people lately, but I find it incredibly ironic that they have no problem sending me a bazillion letters/invoices each month but yet when you call them about an accident it's like they don't know who you are. It took a ridiculously long time, answering the same questions over and over and then finding out they weren't paying for our rental. They also asked the same questions about why and how far we drove our car to the dealership. It said "drive moderately" people!!!

We speak with the Enterprise next door. No cars available. Slight panic. Call Hertz. They've got cars but are twenty minutes away from the other side of town we need to be on. At this point a mild level of hysteria was rising within us because not only did we need to get a rental, check out of the hotel, pick our dog up at doggy daycare, make the two hour drive to Sumter, find wi-fi for a conference call I needed to be on and get Brad to the game but it was already closing in on 11am and our plan was to be on the road to Sumter by 1pm. It was not looking good.

The dealership drove us to Hertz, we flew down the highway to the hotel, were graciously allowed back in our room after they turned off our keycard, packed up and rushed back down the road to get the dog. The dog is not dead. A victory for us at this point. We get on the road and everything seems to be calming down. We are on the most deserted road I've ever seen, and Brad gets pulled by an undercover cop driving a F-150. That's how our cops roll in SC. He's very polite and gives us a ticket that we are supposed to take as a blessing because it is a town ordinance penalty as opposed to a traffic violation that goes against our insurance. Good thing since we just charged our insurance 4K today. Oh wait....$400??!?!?!? That's right. A small price to pay for going 13 miles over the speed limit on the road to no where, I mean Sumter.

Thankfully because I am such a planner I found this awesome website that lists every location that offers free wireless internet in the state of SC. The places it listed for my hometown were accurate so I assumed this website to be reliable. Wrong. The first two places I went to the employees looked at me as if I had spoken Greek when I said "wi-fi". I found a library, walked in and immediately back out. Like no library I've ever seen unless you count a dark musty basement the size of a large closet as a library. Last option: the loudest place on earth. McDonald's. At this point it is actually a few minutes past when I'm supposed to be on the call and Brad and I are sprinting into each restaurant with my laptop, purse, iPhone and the dog going bezerts in the car each time we pull over and rush out like our life depends on it. Finally I get settled and the call was a little delayed so it seemed I was on time. The meeting was supposed to be crucially important, I had to call in on my day off and it was estimated to last an hour and a half. Brad left to go walk the dog and meet up with the team. I never even had to speak on the call (or pay attention) and it lasted all of 35 minutes. I spent the majority of my time watching a new employee get blasted by her boss for not doing anything right. She even got yelled at for not walking fast enough. Which, in my opinion, she was already moving faster than anyone I'd ever seen at any McDonald's, especially a busy one. My theory is that all McDonald's employees start out as a normal people but are worn down by the witchy bosses and the weirdo not eating anything, free-internet stealing patrons who sit for an hour staring at you.

I call Brad to come pick me up and he's none too happy since he had just arrived at the school which was of course on the other side of the town. We grab some dinner and head back to the school. My mom calls to tell me she went to the eye dr, was diagnosed with early stage glaucoma and I'll probably eventually get it too. Thanks for the head's up that we're both going blind, but I'm going to put this on the back burner due to the fact that my pity tank is a little low at the moment.

I try to look foward to the game because Brad has been telling me all weekend how great the team is and how the pitcher will probably be drafted by MLB in a few months. Really? Yeah!  

Well we ended up losing that game 11-0 by the mercy rule in the 5th inning. Good thing we drove over two hours to get there. The game lasted about an hour and fifteen minutes.

After the game Brad gets a call. Immediately his face drops. His grandmother was admitted to the local hospital and then airlifted to Charlotte. She's fine, but she'll be there a couple days.

On the drive home we're mostly silent. We can't even process the day we've had and now it's pouring rain and the rental car feels like it's hydroplaning all over the place. We're both hungry, but we don't even want to stop and eat because we just want to get home and get in our bed.

Oh wait. Our house key is on our keychain. At the dealership. In Conway. Good thing we realized it as we unloaded the car in the rain. At 11:45pm. No we don't hide keys. No we don't leave windows unlocked. I think our neighbor has a key, but Brad assures me I'm delirious. It's cold. I suggest we sleep in our car and call the locksmith in the morning. Brad refuses. We do a couple quick internet searches to see if there is a way to take a locked doorknob off. Again, failed by google. After about an hour of standing in our garage at midnight trying to decide what we should do we decide that breaking in is the best option. That should be easy right? In Hollywood they barely kick a door and it pops open with no apparent damage to the door or doorframe. Well, taking a crowbar to a window doesn't work. Trust me.



Finally Brad tries a golf club and hallelujah the windown shatters into a bazillion pieces all over the place and we are in! Also turns out that if you want to break a window the easy way all you need to do is tap a screwdriver with a hammer and it shatters easily. So sayeth the window replacement guy. Even better news? The neighbor DID have a key.



So yeah, I had a "Case of the Mondays" last week.  This week I stayed home all day on Monday and worked and guess what? Nothing happened. Homebody for life.