Crikey
This has been like the longest day I've known in a while. (And my first day
log! whee!)
It started off well, as Monday mornings have been doing these last few weeks.
Then since Jeana had decided to take the day off work we were going to go get
something to eat. We just got out the door when I realized I didn't have my
keys. We went back in and turned the room inside out searching, but to no
avail. Finally I noticed they were sitting at the base of the driver's seat--in
my locked car.
Strike one.
We called AAA and, they said a truck would meet us at the campus gate
within a half hour. We walked out there and waited in the rain for thirty
minutes, and the guy showed up. Soon we were in the car, and on our way.
By this time it was already 1:00 in the afternoon. We were starving. We found a
litte diner on lakeshore. It turned out to be our plan B after the one we had
originally aimed for was closed for Columbus Day. (Around here, that's known
as Slaughtered Indigenous People's Day, but neither of us ended up going to
class anyway.) We ate fast, and the food was good. The french fries were
especially good--they reminded me a lot of McFries. By the time we'd finished
lunch it was about 2:00. Jeana would be late for class, and explained that,
with her teacher, not showing up at all would be better than showing up late.
After leaving the diner, we were both pretty thirsty. We ended up at Baskin
Robbins', even though we were both stuffed. I got a mint chocolate chip shake,
and she got chocolate peanut butter in a sugar cone. The got chocolate all over
her face, too. I told her I like spending days at a time with her, and that we
shouldn't let it end so soon. You know what they say about hindsight. I
shouldn't say that, though. I still did enjoy myself all day.
Anyway, we decided to see a movie, and we decided to see it in San Francisco.
We headed out to the AMC 1000, where we always go. We got there right at
about 3:00, and all the movies started at around 2 or around 4. We had a some
time to kill, so we wandered a bit. We came across a Universalist Unitarian
Church with a banner saying they were celebrating 150 (or some other large
number of) years of liberal religion. We didn't know what Unitarian meant, so
we decided to go in and ask them. They were having some sort of private event
there and someone suggested it might be appropriate to explore tomorrow
instead. They just lost two potential unitarian converts, I guess! We ended up
killing more time at Walgreen's and then at the Wherehouse. Eventually we
walked over to the theater (crossing a very convincing(fooled me) transvestite
on the way, according to Jeana). Anyway, we had already bought our tickets
earlier, and headed on up the escalators to our theater. It was number 12, way
up on the 7th floor. We got all the way up there and found our seats, and
started to get comfortable. Just then an usher hurried into the room and in a
raised voice announced "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm very sorry to have to do this
to you, but I've just been informed of police action in the building requiring
us to evacuate the entire building."
Strike two.
That whole process was an ordeal in itself. That building holds a lot
of people. They'd promised us refunds for ticket stubs, but at the time we just
needed to get out of the building. Getting to the car and then out of the
garage each proved to be significant trials in themselves. Eventually we'd made
it out, and still didn't want to go home. I mentioned that there was another
AMC a few blocks away, and that we could try there. They might even honor our
ticket stubs if we explain what happened here.
We drove over to the Kabuki theater, and found a great parking spot just around
the corner from the theater. I grabbed three quarters from my ashtray, and we
got out of the car. I put two quarters in the meter and tossed the other on the
passenger's seat. We weren't the only evacuated moviegoers with the same idea,
and thankfully they were exchanging free passes for stubs from the Van Ness
theater. This showing was starting at 4:50, and it was 4:30 now. Perfect
timing! We were seeing Meet the Parents. I'd made a joke about her saying
how much her parents want to meet me.
We got inside, and I noticed it was playing in auditorium one, which has a
balcony. It was roped off, but we went up there anyway. There was plenty of
space--it was nearly empty, but for a few fellow rebels. We enjoyed the movie,
and headed downstairs afterwards.
We both needed to use the restrooms, which were pretty crowded now. After doing
my business I joined the ranks of other guys waiting for girls from the women's
room. I'd been waiting about 10 minutes, and this guy standing next to me
wondered aloud "what's going on in there?" At least we get to purge and then
wait--they were still holding it while waiting in line. He appreciated my
putting things in perspective, and just then his wife came out. He offered me
good luck and walked off, and just then Jeana emerged.
We headed down the escalator and decided to find some food. It was clearly
dinnertime, and we were in Japantown, so we though we'd find a restaurant. We
didn't get too far--our hunger landed us at Pasta Pomodoro just next door.
We were both trying to decide between the tortellini or the spaghetti and
meatballs, and both ended up deciding on the tortellini. After ordering we
noted it would have been better to have ordered one of each and shared, but the
tortellini turned out to be really good, anyway, so we were both happy. Dinner
was fairly uneventful, but nice. It was really nice.
We decided we'd go for dessert again, trying to remember the name of the
rotating restaurant at the top of the Grand Hyatt. Her "it starts with an e"
was enough to jog me into "Equinox!" I told her about the time we'd headed
there for Julie's birthday, and they were all snooty and told us we'd each have
to order something. The place was empty, and our group huddle decided to be
bold and declare that we were ordering one dessert between the seven of us, or
we were leaving. It was a sweet dessert.
Anyway, today, Jeana and I decided against it and headed to The Cheesecake
Factory. The ultra-femme half of a lesbian couple composed of extremes
pointed us in the right direction: Macy's at Union Square. We started walking
towards the car.
Jeana was on my left arm as we turned the corner past the theater. I noticed
from very far away that the window looked too clear, like it had been left
open.
Strike Three.
I hurried my steps a little, and noticing glass on the floor, remarked "My
fucking window's broken." I glanced in, crunching glass beneath my sneakers. I
was glad that this had been one of the few times I'd locked The Club across
my steering wheel. I noticed that the stereo was still there. There was glass
everywhere, on the sidewalk, on the seats, on the floor of the car. I never
knew so much glass would come from one little window.
I didn't know what to do, so I called dad first. I told him what had happened,
and he just told me to call the insurance company and the cops. While the phone
was ringing with the insurance company I noticed Jeana's backpack was gone. She
had been ambitious enough to bring it to lunch earlier today, that I might take
her straight to class if time was getting a little tight. I remember thinking
on the way out of the car that maybe we should put it in the trunk, but I
didn't say anything about it. The whole time, she was so good at making sure I
was okay; she didn't even once mention anything about losing her backpack.
That she lost her backpack made me feel that much worse. She's always saying I
take good care of her, but this violation struck deep enough to unsettle that
as well. It sounds like chivalrous bullshit, I know, but it shattered the
illusion that I could protect her.
Anyway, I spoke with the claims officer, who took a full report and informed me
that they'd be able to send out a glass repair agent to my house to fix it
within the next couple of days. That's pretty nice, at least. For the time
being, Jeana rigged a sheet of plastic to keep most of the rain out. It was
deafening all the way home over the bridge, but did its job. I had her sit in
the seat directly behind me to avoid any glass shaken loose and blown into the
back seat. She told me she'd already gotten a small cut trying to clean out
some of the glass from the passenger's seat while I was on the phone.
I dropped Jeana off at her place, and headed home. By now the plastic was
giving way and it was getting louder and windier in the car. It was also
getting later, colder, and wetter. All that on the way back across highway 13
without Jeana there to keep my spirits up for was enough to get me pretty down on the universe by the time I got home.
I headed inside in search of trash bags and tape in hopes of a slightly better
solution to keep the rain out overnight. I went into the kitchen, and pulled
out a garbage bag, and then upstairs to get a roll of tape. Coming down the
stairs, I explained the situation to a couple of my friends who were wondering
why I looked so down, and what I was doing with that garbage bag. I headed
outside and tried as best as I could to protect the car from the night's rain,
and covered the car to try to keep it from attracting any new attention. Then I
headed upstairs and called home again.
Yeah, I'm finally home, and warm. I taped up the gaping window, and covered the
car, and I'm to call the police department's telephone report line during
business hours tomorrow. I told them my whole story, of how bad today had been,
and how one thing after another things just kept going wrong. Bad things come
in threes, like they say. ('They' being the pagans.) I vented my ordeals to my
loving parents, whose only response was "you mean you skipped class today?"
*sigh* ... when it rains, it pours.