Key Calamity

First of all, I'd like to acknolwedge how crappy it was of me to send a note out to everyone saying "Hey, I'm blogging again, check back often!" and then proceed to not post anything new. I think I kinda scare myself every time I do that. You know. Because that means people might actually be reading this.

I seem to be having bad luck with keys today.

I was so proud of myself for getting up early (by early, I mean on time, which really is early for me). I went to leave the house when I realized, as usual, I had forgotten my car keys downstairs in my room. The weird thing is, they weren't in my room. Or in my purse, which I tore apart, or in my jacket pockets. Or in the tv room. Or on the kitchen counters. Or in the upstairs hallway. (You get the point.) I'm starting to snicker at the irony that the one day I am actually early/on time, I'm going to be late because I can't find my car keys. So I finally give in and grab the spare set, which I don't like because the lock remote doesn't work (I know, spoiled). Halfway to work, I remember; yesterday I had softball and was wearing my rain jacket. Guaranteed they are in that pocket.

I feel a bit better pulling in to work. Until I get up the elevators to the electronically locked door. I hold my purse up to activate my keycard (because I am too lazy to take it out at the time, and it still reads it) but the little red light doesn't turn green. You've gotta be kidding me.

In my search for my car keys, I took my keycard out of my purse because it has little keys attached to it that fool me into thinking it is my car keys. Evidentally, I forgot to put it back in.

Funny how losing one set of keys can cause you to lose another.

I also walked into the corner of the open metal drawer of my desk.

It's 9:00 a.m. Can't WAIT to see how the rest of the day will go.

*AFTER PUBLISHING NOTE: I asked for an extra keycard from our admin. It was when she brought it to me that I realized my keycard was already hooked on my beltloop, and not in my purse. I didn't forget it at home, I forgot I was wearing it!! That's the LAST TIME I'm going to get up early for work!!!!

Absent-Minded

*Staring blankly at screen*

Today I drove to work. I pulled into the dreaded Impark parking lot that I hate but have no choice to park in and parked beside the machine I have to buy a ticket from. I got out of the car, went to the other side of my car closer to the machine, and proceded to open my gas tank. After staring blankly at it for a few minutes I remembered that hey, there's no gas station here, and hey, I'm trying to pay for parking, not pump gas.

I did something else absent minded today but I can't remember what. HA.

Innovative Car Repairs

I don't know why it is people keep hitting my car when they are backing out of parking spaces. Is my car invisible? Because it looks silver to me. If I have been driving around with an invisible car, I would hope that someone would have told me by now. The idea that I have had an invisible car this entire time and not taken advantage of it is upsetting to me. I wish Impark personnel couldn't see my car the way these people that keep driving into me don't.

What makes me the most angry is knowing a simple glance in the rear view mirror or side view mirror would quickly indicate to them that yes, there IS indeed a car behind them and maybe, just maybe, they should attempt to avoid hitting it. Who ARE these people that slam on the gas pedal and think "Look out, I'm coming back, if you get hit, it's your fault!" Perhaps they are the same people that ride their bikes into parked cars. By the same logic, would you walk backwards without looking? No...so why would you operate a huge device made of steel worth thousands of dollars with you in it without watching where you are going? WHY!?

The inspiration for this rant came from a recent incident in the Best Buy parking lot. Here I was, driving very slowly, making my way over to an empty parking stall. I see a car backing out to my left. I see the car isn't stopping. I'm too far along to brake and avoid a collision, and cannot accelerate fast enough to get out of the way. So I slam on my horn and hold it down. The car still comes. I look around me trying to think of what other possible signal I can give to indicate "HEY YOU ARE ABOUT TO DRIVE RIGHT INTO ME YOU MORON". After a good three seconds of horn blasting, the car backs into me anyway, crunching my driver's side door. The wonderfully ironic part of the story is that the weather conditions were atrocious as it was the second day of our April blizzard. So one would think that car accidents would be more likely to happen. But this accident had nothing to do with the weather! She didn't slide...she didn't even try to brake. It had to do with stupidity instead.

She gets out of her car all distraught and apologizing. I say it's ok, these things happen, once I take a few deep breaths to calm myself down. After all, it could be a lot worse. After going inside her van to get a pen, and me hearing her teenage son in the passenger side say "I TOLD you to stop!" and her replying with a polite screaming "SHUTUP!!!" she advises me she wants to pay for it herself instead of going through insurance. I'm fine with this. But upon consultation of my witness, he says I might be able to just take an ordinary hardware store plunger and pull the dent right out. Apparently this is a secret weapon to many a body shop repair man. The paint isn't scratched at all, and I figure if I can do this, I can save both of us some trouble.


There is no way you can plunger your car without having someone take pictures of it. (Thanks goes out to Nikki. Ma homegirl slice. Word.)





First, I had to try to sterilize the plunger a bit. My car is dirty enough without feces on it. This is me soaping it up and doing my best to avoid touching it. Gross.

This is me doing my very best to get the best suction against the car door as possible.



This is me losing my plunging mojo. As you probably would have guessed, it didn't work.

So...anyone know a good auto body shop in Edmonton?

Spring In Edmonton

This is a cell phone picture I took from my bus on the way to work on this lovely late-April morning. That is, after I walked to the bus stop, slipped and fell on my hands and knees, froze at the bus stop for 45 minutes waiting for a bus that was, coincidentally, 45 minutes late, and froze at my transfer bus stop for another 20 minutes. Oh, I also had the priveledge of listening to someone's crappy music while snuggled tight against strangers in the bus shelter. What is with those crappy ear phones that come with ipods that make it so that not only the listener but everyone around them has to deal with their poor taste in music? That is, unless my ipod is on. Because we all know how wonderful my taste in music is. *Lorraine hopes anyone who knows that she has a song from the movie Cinderella in her itunes is not reading this.*

Let's all try and ignore the fact that it was 24 degrees out a week and a half ago. Which just happened to be on my birthday. Being as it snowed the next day, logically, the only way to make sense of what happened is to deduct that it was a birthday miracle. And Edmonton weather is spawned by the devil.