Anyway, on to my eventful weekend. Generally Derrick works 6 days a week, but he took off Monday in anticipation of my long MLK weekend. The plan was to hike and possibly camp somewhere. Yeah well.
Saturday night we passed out on the couch watching Dark Knight Rises with our friend Justin. Sunday morning I woke up, thought about wearing my favorite boots, and realized they were in the car. I tried to find my purse, but couldn't, and forgot about it for a while. We felt a bit lazy so instead of leaving early to go hike as planned we started watching one of my favorite shows, Carnivale. Then we finally decided to go hike somewhere and also go to Super Cao Ngyen (the big awesome Asian market). When I went downstairs to see if my missing purse was in my car......the car wasn't there. It didn't really seem real so I walked around for a while just looking around. Then I walked back upstairs and joked about it. Then I ran back downstairs and freaked. I was more freaked out that my car was stolen with my purse in it--as my purse had Derrick's share of the bills in it...in cash.
So, we sat down for a second trying to figure out when the purse and the car would have gone missing and if there was a reasonable explanation for it. Justin had left at around 2am, and we couldn't remember if he had his car. So, even though it was unlikely, we were a little hopeful he had just taken it without asking. So we called, and of course, our reliable-as-hell (yeah right) little J had forgotten to pay his cell phone bill and it was cut off. So, we drove directly over to his place and found that he did indeed have my purse, with all cash intact (I had forgotten I'd ridden with him to rent the movie and left my purse in there).
So, I actually felt super relieved and not entirely freaked out about the car yet. I was just glad to have my purse, and it still didn't feel real that the car could be missing. Neither of us could believe it actually, and we just kind of joked about it. I realized I had no idea what the license plate was on the damn thing, and I had JUST went to the tag agency to switch the title over from dad's name to mine, so of course I didn't have it yet. Lovely. Luckily when I was trying to get insurance on it I had taken a picture of the VIN and still had that on my phone. PHEW!
So, called the police, which was annoying and took forever and there were several stupid things with that, but eventually I had my report filed and a promise from the police officer that went something like "Yeah, Honda Accords, pretty much THE most stolen car, we'll probably find it in an alleyway stripped for parts." Cool.
So, on with our day, which ended up being lovely. I figured worrying about not having a car wasn't going to make me magically have a car, so we went to Super Cao Nguyen and did what I love to do most in grocery stores--went slowly down every aisle, twice, and looked at every single thing. Awesome! We bought some fresh fish for stew, and a few African things that he remembered eating and wanted me to try. Plus some awesome possum ginger tea that tastes downright amazing with condensed milk in it. Oh yeah, and of course strawberry pocky and a cream bun for moi. Afterwards we went to Taj for Indian buffet thanks to my lovely stepsis who gave me a gift certificate for Xmas. It was awesome and has the best mango lassies ever. We ate like kings and then went home and fell asleep watching Carnivale.
We woke up the next morning with a plan to go hiking, but I had a missed call from the police. So, I called and found out that my car had been found! Called the impound lot and found out it would be over $250 to get it back, I would need the registration that I did not yet have, it would be $4 extra each day they had it, and they couldn't tell me what shape it was in. I didn't even know if it had been completely stripped, was completely fine, was totalled in a wreck, or what. AGH! So, realizing that if I paid that $250 I would not be able to pay the $650 total in rent I pay right now (let's call it alimony), I did what any self-respecting 30 year old would do and called daddy. Who kindly offered to pay. (now let's be fair and say that if he hadn't, Mom would have bailed me out, but she's bailed me out way too much lately, so I didn't want her to yet again)
So, I found out my registration had come in the mail and made a plan to pick up the car the next day. Mom called and asked if we wanted to go to the zoo, which sounded better than driving somewhere to hike in the cold. We packed up a lunch and went to meet her. And on the way....got a flat tire. And when we changed the tire to the donut, found the donut was flat. So we drove on the bad tire to the zoo, and said fuck it and went inside. It was lovely, and lunch was awesome. Oh, and Derrick fed me to a lion.
Next day....the impound lot. The lady freaked me out and told me it had been wrecked a few times and I might not want it, so Dad and I went back to survey the damage. From the outside...not bad! I had indeed been wrecked a few times, but its just the paint off the front passenger bumper and scraped all down both sides. Shitty, but not undriveable. They had, however, completely broken out the ignition switch and cracked the plastic all around it and pulled off part of the driver's door frame. And taken everything I had out of the front and back seats, the glove compartment, and the middle consoles. Which includes (but is not limited to): Mike's wedding ring (mine was in the floorboard, they forgot it), a big bag of my clothes, my running shoes and workout clothes, a bag of pictures, my special edition fancy Origin of Species book, my favorite expensive water bottle, my extra brake fluid (the brakes still need to be fixed), a bunch of Holiday Barbies, the ice scrapers, my trash, my napkins, some science papers, and they ripped apart and then burned my parking pass for OU. There were a pair of zebra print gloves, prescription glasses, 3 phone chargers, an ipod charger, and pretzels all over the front of the car, and the back seat was covered with cookies and valentine's day sprinkles. They had apparently chain smoked the entire time and didn't use any of the ashtrays, but instead used the floorboard and the dash. It smells like a fucking bar in the car and gave me a headache just on the drive home. The trunk wasn't really touched, which is awesome because that's where my favorite boots were! Plus my boardgames and a buncha other shit. Yes, this does teach me not to live out of my car so much. Anyway, they had left a bag filled with clothes back there. Several pairs of looney toons boxershorts, a pair of jeans with belt, some white tshirts, a sweater, a hoodie, and lots of socks.
So, for now, I have to drive with the windows down from the stink, I need to go to the carwash and vacuum out the detritus, and I have to start my car by sticking a screwdriver (that they kindly left me in the front seat) into the steering column. And I have to park it at dad's because a baby could steal it right now, all you need is a little strength to pry the door open and a screwdriver to start it with. So....joy. A new ignition switch is $155.99 from Oreillys. UGH. Assholes. This is what I get for being poor and only having liability on my poor 1996 car. The total to just pick it up from the impound lot was just a few bucks over $250. Thank you dad.
Lesson: hate everyone, especially drunk young smokers.
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