are you a mexican or a mexican’t?

why do i think i’ve used that title before?

regardless, earlier this week i realized something i’d never noticed before – st. patrick’s day and cinco de mayo always fall on the same day of the week. as an irish kid who has a thing for the mexican (or latin) girls how on earth did i not notice this?

weird.

so i have realized that, unless somebody insists on it, i am forever scheduling people for two days off in a row. most like it, some don’t care, but after an experience i had back in february i kinda made it mandatory for all who don’t insist on having, say, sunday and wednesday for whatever family reason they want such shit.

to each their own.

valentine’s day started with me blowing out my ass.

i’m not making that up, and i don’t mean that in a scary sexual way or an even scarier (or at least more gross) diarrhea way. no, i just mean it as a pants ripping thing. but seriously, it was 12:02am, i was working a few hours later than i was scheduled, and as i went to get in the rental car since mine wasn’t ready at the body shop yet (again – this was the third deadline they’d blown) i ripped out the ass of my favorite camo cargo pants – not ’cause they were too tight, but rather too lose and hanging kinda funny and it stressed the non-seam area and all went awry.

i shoulda known then how the day would go.

so i went home and pilled myself to sleep. the next morning i got up and first thing called the body shop, only to be told the car WOULD be ready, but not until sometime between three and five…”they’d call me”. these guys were nice, and good at what they do, but they had only “called me” one time in the two weeks my car was inside, so i kinda doubted it would happen.

i decided to busy my day with yard work. i took care of the pups, went out back, and got the mower all ready to go. fired it up, and it started second pull, only to die after three seconds. several pulls later the same thing. several pulls after that the rope broke, making it all “un-pull-able”.

so than i had to take the mower apart, and in the process of doing so my drill i’ve had for eight years burned out. and i don’t mean the battery – i mean the drill. like smoke pouring out of it kinda burned out. no bueno.

so now my mower AND drill were dead, and it was creeping up on time to get ready to head into austin to (in theory) finally get my car.

i could have waited at home for the call i felt would never come, but instead, i just made sure i was conveniently at a gym around three near them, and worked out. got done around four, went out to the rental and checked the phone…

…no call.

so i called them and was told that now my car wouldn’t be ready until the 5:30 – 6:00 range. i went, ate, returned my rental car, and enterprise dropped me off around 5:45 where my car sat outside waiting for me – but not before delivering some bad news. turns out the insurance company hadn’t approved the last four days i had the car, so not only would they not refund my fifty dollar deposit, but they said they’d charge me an additional ninety plus tax if the insurance company didn’t sign off on this last part of the bill.

“FUCK YOU!”, i said. direct quote.

“show me were i signed off on being charged for this car…”, i stated, “’cause i know i signed off on a fifty dollar deposit, so you could hold that for any reason and i’m just screwed…but the bill says ‘DIRECT BILL TO INSURANCE COMPANY’ and there’s no ‘if they don’t pay we charge him’ note so i’ll just claim the charge is fraudulent and get my money back, plus you’ll be dinged fifty bucks for the charge back!”

it kinda pisses ’em off when they deal with somebody who knows what they’re doing and shit.

so than the guy i just said “FUCK YOU”, etc, etc to got to run me to the body shop. talk about an awkward ride, which thankfully was less than a mile – and there say my car, looking pretty as ever. i was a happy kid. never mind the mower, the drill, the rental bullshit – i had my boy* back. it just didn’t get any better for me right then…

…until i started it, and the check engine light came on when it hadn’t been on before. and all the mechanics were gone for valentine’s day, so they told me to come back in the next day.

fucking awesome – ’cause today already hadn’t felt like a day off ’cause it was so stressful…now i get to come BACK into austin the next day? fuck all this! i went drinking…in buda.

no good story starts with “than i went drinking in buda”, but i did.

after i got home i got restless, so went out for more bar hopping in san marcos. shortly after midnight (when the bars close there) i headed out to get food, only to discover my check engine light was now turned off, all on it’s own.

maybe it was just a v-day curse?

in the course of the next day i would fix the mower (sorta – still doesn’t run as of this writing a few days later, but at least the pull rope is good), i got a new drill, and the car is doing fine…plus i didn’t have to go back into austin until i was PAID do to so.

see – you need two days off in a row…one to have blow up in your face, and one to right the wrongs of the first one. that’s what i was getting at…don’t know if it was worth the journey, though.