Comedy of Errors

Murphy’s Law : things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance

Let me just tell you what kind of day I’ve had. It really started on Friday, last week. My car alarm started going nuts. It kept arming and disarming itself several times a minute. Normally I wouldn’t care but it has this annoying chirp that it makes when it does that. Everyone else thought it was funny, but I just found it annoying. I had one of the shop guys snip a wire (we thought it was disconnecting it completely but I later realized it only affected the sound) to make it stop. My keyless entry still worked so I just parked the car on the street over the weekend until Matthew had this Friday off to take it in and be fixed. We’ve learned the hard way several times over that parking my car on the street is SAFER than parking in the apartment’s lot (unless you have an active alarm).

Then on Sunday I was sick so Matthew did the laundry and let me doze/lounge. He came back in at one point and announced that he did a first for us. I opened my eyes and asked him what did he mean? “I washed my cell phone.” Great! Well, that’s why we pay for insurance right? His new phone is due in the mail today.

Two completely unrelated incidents right? Flash forward to today, Wednesday. I kissed Matthew good-bye on my way to my morning shower as usual and then got ready for work. I got into my car and noticed it was making that weird clicking that it had been making on Friday after we disconnected the siren. Hmmm. Oh well, that was bound to happen once in awhile right? So I go to start the car… click. Click. Nothing. Dang it all!

So I call work and tell my boss that my battery was dead and I’d be coming in late. Next step, find someone to jump my car. I back into my apartment and call my friend Stephanie. She’s still home and feeding her little boy so I ask if she or her hubby can come downstairs and jump my car. Sure, no problem. So I lock my place back up and go outside and wait. Jeremy comes down to see where I’m parked and goes back to his car. I go out to wait by my car. *This is where it gets really good.*

Since I’m parked on the street we were worried about the cables being able to reach so I put my stuff IN my car and my keys in the ignition, popped my hood and trunk and climbed out of the car. I figured that if the car did it’s locking/unlocking thing again I could just get in when it unlocked again. I’m digging in my trunk and I hear the car lock, stupid car. So I go to stand by it and wait for it to unlock again. But it won’t. NO!!! My purse and phone are in there! By then Jeremy has pulled up and is getting out of his car. Um… yeah.

No problem, let’s go inside to get the spare keys right? We wake up the apartment manager (it’s like 7:20 now so whatever!) and get the spares to get into my apartment. Only to remember that my spare keys are in my purse because they’re also attached to the mail key. Stupid stupid! Normally in this situation I could just call Matthew on his cell and have him click the car open with the keyless entry remote through the phone (it works… how do you think OnStar does it?). Except for the fact that he doesn’t have a phone! He works for a city a few lumps over and drives all over the place in their trucks so I have no other way of reaching him (I’m making him give me a number to the dispatch center or something for future emergencies). So I close my hood and trunk and we go back up to their apartment. Stephanie calls their roadside assistance service to see if they’ll do it while I kick myself for not being more proactive about pushing to keep Triple A. Their RA won’t help me because I’m not listed on their insurance (we figured but tried anyway). So Jeremy offered to pack up CJ in the car and drive me to work. He said he’d even pick me up in the afternoon! Steph insisted because she said enough people have done it for them so they need to pay it forward. Meanwhile Jeremy plans to check my car all day to see if it actually unlocked itself so he can collect my stuff (keys, purse, phone etc.).

And today was street sweeper day. Guess who will have a big fat parking ticket when they got home. Thank heaven I’ve got some fantastic friends though! Matthew and I can take them to dinner or something to thank them for rescuing me.