Caterwauling

So my plane lands at National Airport circa 8 a.m. today. I haven’t slept in days and am more loopy than a friggin’ cable-knit sweater, yet I get the Bright Idea to drop something off at work before going home.

Never mind that I hadn’t bathed in 27 hours, but my punch-drunk self throws the car in a parking spot at Ye Humble Employment Establishment and hops out. I noticed I’d left the lights on, so I went to open the door. It was locked, but I had no key. Where was said key? In the ignition.

AND THE CAR WAS RUNNING!

There was a mild ray of light in that I’d left the sunroof partially open, but hard as I tried, I could not get my fat ass through it far enough to reach the steering wheel.

I’m lucky I didn’t dent that damn hood. Tawny Kitaen? I am not.

Oh, the humanity.

So I called AAA for help, and I explained my predicament. Which was all null and void when, afterward, I was asked for my AAA member number (um, it’s in the car) and my driver’s license number (take a wild guess where THAT was, too).

And my wait time? Estimated 90 minutes.

*thunk*

Meanwhile, I work in the land of three-piece suits and I’m all scuzzy and casual and shit. Yet, I dropped off my thing and grabbed a cup of coffee. And within an hour, help came. (Yay.)

Last night while we were all scrambling to go from restaurant to hotel to airport within the space of a half-hour, I’d been fretting about my keys. I kept thinking they were locked in my hotel room that I’d surrendered hours earlier. Seriously, I was nuts over my car keys. And when I located them at the bottom of my carryon, I’d thought the worst was over. Nope — I just hadn’t lost them YET!

My little black cloud had lifted for a couple of days, and I knew to be grateful. I did, in fact, leave my heart in San Francisco. But my cats? Left a half-dozen shit landmines and twice as many skid marks here in Northwest D.C.

Oh well, nothin’ really left to look forward to, but a few moments of dare I say joy to reflect upon. And I’ll just be glad the universe gave me a little bit to keep me going and believing that one day, we’ll (OK, “I’ll” — I know y’all will!) laugh about all of this. …

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 10:47 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.