Tonight I stopped at my mom’s house so we could go to the Clayton Library book sale. We hurried over there since my mom thought it closed at 6, but as we headed into Clayton, we checked the flyer and it closed at 7. I found some books and we went back to her house where I could pick up the 15 pounds of ground beef I’d be frying up for dinner tomorrow (my mom’s birthday dinner at Jason’s).
So I load up the meat and my books into my car and get in. And my car won’t start. Since I drive a stick shift, you have to press in the clutch and the brake at the same time to start the car. Well, the car doesn’t start so I think, oh I better press the clutch in all the way, and I did (not in any way different than usual) AND SOMETHING SNAPPED. And the car doesn’t start.
Meanwhile, since my mom and I were headed over to Jason’s to get money from him for the birthday dinner supplies as I was going to do the shopping tomorrow at Winco, my mom had sped off, leaving me stranded in front of her house. I fiddle around with the car to no avail, then head inside, thinking to call the car place to see if they were open on the weekends (they’re not).
So I call over to Jason’s, but he’s completely confused by my story, and then I call back a few minutes later and my mom had gotten there, so she comes back home and picks me up (and I’ve hauled the meat back inside to their house) and I get the meat out of their fridge and we head over to Jason’s. She had the great idea that I could borrow his van since he doesn’t use it.
So I stuff the meat into his fridge, and we get the list together of the things I need to pick up at Winco (soda, mushroom soup, etc. etc.) and I get Jason’s keys, and the fifteen pounds of meat, and we go out to the driveway and get into the cars, and while I’m turning the key in his van and hearing the unmistakable clicking of a dead battery, my mom speeds off to their house.
Desperately, I turn the key one more time. CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK
“MOTHEREFFER!!!” I screech to high heavens, staring at the fifteen pounds of meat.
I pick up the fifteen pounds of meat and exit the car, clutching it my bosom as my last lifeline to sanity.
I go back inside Jason’s house with the meat. “WHAT.” He’d be more menacing if he didn’t need a haircut so bad.
“Your car won’t start,” I tell him. “The battery’s dead.”
He doesn’t believe me.
“Really!” I say, as the meat starts to slide. I hoist it up and head back to the refrigerator where I stuff it back onto the shelf.
Phone in hand, I sit down on the couch, sans meat. Pitifully.
I call my parents.
My dad picks up the phone. “HELLO! IT IS MELISSA!” I say.
“Hi,” he says.
I relate to him my pitiful story. I’m starting to think I might have to stay over at Jason’s, given how my day has gone. Or, alternately, desperately clutch the meat to myself while I walk the two miles home through a sketchy neighborhood (I considered it.).
A few minutes later my dad has come to get me, and he says he’ll call my uncle Tom, who knows cars, and maybe he can fix it.
Now I’m finally home, about to have popcorn for dinner, made saltier by my tears of bitterness and betrayal.
Strike 2, car, strike 2.
