All the Pretty Cars are Going to Hell

And the god of transportation did look down upon us and laugh. "Your car troubles," he said with smugness, "shall be a lesson. Heed it well, mortals, lest ye ever take your working vehicle for granted again."

The last 30+ days have been filled with car death. Not even Optimus Prime was free of problems. For Hannah and I: May was bookended with flat tires. The first flat was the day before Beltane. It was raining. We'd just left the IEPG Beltane celebration and were heading to a friend's house to continue celebrating when the threadbare tire in the back let out a tremendous wet fart as it succumbed to the inevitable. I wasn't too worried. It was only lightly raining and I'm actually pretty handy with general car stuff. I got my jack and donut spare ready but didn't have a tire iron. Fuck. But we have good friends and two came to our rescue. Fast forward to the day after May. On June 1st I went to use our last little bit of money to get some chocolate for Hannah and I (as Hannah had made it clear that if I didn't get us some kind comfort snack she might murder me) and as I made my way south on Pines, I thought it would be a goddamn great idea to mate my front tire with the curb. The mating ritual began with a boom and ended with a 'ka-thud, ka-thud, ka-thud.' Again, thankfully we have great friends. Our friends who were married on May 1st (the day after the first flat tire) saved me this time. 

But let me derail a moment and chronicle the car problems between Optimus's flats: our friend's Ford Contour died when its timing belt lost track of time, my twinsy friends lost their boat of a car to a suspected dead alternator, and our Kettle Korn diva had issues with both her vehicles (the Smart Car tried to mate with a curb and was even less successful than Optimus Prime and her mustard yellow Truck has been in and out of the car hospital all month). In the few days since our second flat: the newlyweds who helped me out on June 1st had to be rescued from the Cosco parking lot when their hatchback made the death rattle, and a couple of hours ago (2 AM) we got yet another car call. Hannah and I just returned from picking up our poor stranded friend from the Sullivan Wal-Mart due to a dead battery situation. 

I'm going to be working about 12 hours of overtime in the next two weeks and I think I'm going to use every penny extra that brings me to get Optimus checked out and get him a new belt. If I'm going to be the bad-ass friend who rescues my darlings from parking lots around Spokane and Spokane Valley then I need to make sure my ride is a reliable one. Speaking of work, though, this Monday will be the start of an eleven day work week. Of the three people we recently hired only one of them actually worked out (and he's doing freaking amazing!) but on top of that the other Lead quit with only two days notice. Ergo we are mutha-fuckin shorthanded. I'm going to buckle in for this eleven day long haul and enjoy the overtime. At the end of it all I will start a new schedule working Sunday (5-1) and Monday thru Thursday (7-4). What this means for me is that I'll always have Friday and Saturday off which is kind of neat. Also it splits up the weekends between my supervisor and I so that neither of us have to work both days. The weekends start so freaking early and are such a mixed bag of insanity that it might be nice to only have to deal with it one time a week instead of back to back every other weekend. 

Side note to the above: my bosses are so sweet. The manager and supervisor had me come in on my day off to work on scheduling and make a plan to get us through the summer. When I got to the office they called me into a conference room and started the morning by giving me a present tower. They gave me a coloring book with pencils, My Little Pony stickers, Rainbow Dash knee socks, double stuffed Oreos, and a lovely card in which they both told me how much they appreciate me being there. It made me feel so freaking good. Yeah, there are definitely days when this job stresses me out and there are definitely customers that call in who make me want to scream, but I've said from the very beginning, I've never worked for a place like this before. I've never been able to put a local address for the 'corporate' office of my workplace on my taxed. I've never been so rewarded for work well done and I've never received such positive reinforcement. Also I've never had a job before where I truly believed the higher ups gave a shit about me. Not just about 'employees,' but about 'me' specifically. It's a neat feeling. And on that note, I'm going to get some more sleep.