the future is today

hey! lucky you. you get a recap of what led to my 3:54am post. i'm still sleepy (amazing, being that it's after 1am) but eminently more alert than i was last time.

the short version: friday was a very, very, very long day.

much longer (think old testament, intermission-worthy) version:

• got up way too early (645am). canNOT tell you why. and even if i could, it wouldn't matter. would it? thought so.
  
• blogged something that got more attention than i expected. and fyi, not necessarily so accurate as it turns out, at least in the "results" department
  
• went to work. did something for a few hours. cannot remember what.
  
• lunch with liz. usual debate about where to go, but of course, agree that it must be near toffee crack distributor. settle on now-with-friendly-hostess indian buffet! she still surprises me.
  
• post-lunch exclamations akin to "ahhhhh" and "i love toffee crack" and "omg this is so good" fill the 5 ft BUBBLE surrounding me for several minutes
  
• back to work. accidentally skip company meeting. notice a LOT of other people are skipping meeting, and we enjoy much discourse (e.g., metrosexual garb, the pacific northwest, how fluffy penny's hair is today) with aforementioned skippers.
  
• i think i worked on some bugs
  
• wait longer than expected for chariot to arrive, because chariot driver got sick whilst running errands. get headache and eyestrain from looking at computer too long. go for walkabout. rinse and repeat.
  
• chariot driver appears to be on the mend. tenative plans for dinner and movie are a go!
  
• chariot arrives, along with chariot driver and parental units, around 645. all of us exit stage left and head to the amc mercado. since it's less than a half hour til munich, we get dinner to go from world wrapps and smuggle it into the theatre.
  
• enjoy the movie a LOT. also help min a bit since she starts having an attack (resulting from her dinner). she walks around and things calm down by the time the movie ends.
  
• movie ends- the four of us exit stage right. my dad falls down before we exit the auditorium. it's a very minor fall, but he does NOT look good, so we sit him down on a bench in the hallway. min has the brilliant idea to go get the chariot and bring it around to the back entrance so dad doesn't have to walk so far. i go with her so i can help her find the chariot, and come think of it, drive, because min's starting to get pretty sleepy.
  
• we are within 50 feet of the chariot. i didn't bring my bag in, but min brought a bag, so i ask her for the chariot keys.
  
• there are no keys.
  
• grep -lr 'keys to my chariot' * = no results
  
• i go to the chariot to look for keys, make sure chariot hasn't been confiscated, etc. min retraces her steps, returns to auditorium, etc, hoping to find keys. i return to theatre and we find out hey! grep still returns no results.
  
• around 1045pm, i call AAA - on the payphone, because the cell is in the chariot, naturally - and arrange for a chariot hack. i may not know where min's keys are - in fact, at this point no one knows - but i know that my keys are in the trunk, in my bag, so once we get those we can go home. i let them know that i also have my father with me, and he is ill, so if they can expedite the request i would really appreciate it. they say it should be less than an hour.
  
• min is VERY sleepy at this point. i don't have my coat. but since i run very hot (my temperature) AND i am the healthiest one in the bunch, i volunteer to go wait next to the chariot for AAA to hack into said chariot.
  
• spent 15 minutes in tolerably cold parking lot, walking around chariot. spot AAA truck already! sweet!
  
• but, why is he staying way over there? well, maybe he will come down this row and not maintain a 100 feet BUBBLE around me. oh yes, here he comes.
  
• oh good fuck, WHERE ARE YOU GOING? I'm over here!! you are NOT supposed to skip the 3 rows that surround me, moron. and...you shit. you are NOT supposed to leave the parking lot after this cursory jaunt!
  
• maybe he went to another part of this mammoth parking lot. i'll wait 5 minutes and see if he returns.
  
• fucker.
  
• fine. i go back inside and call AAA and explain what happened. they tell me to go back outside, that the driver is still in the area and should be with me shortly.
  
• i spend another 45 minutes a) walking around the chariot in an attempt to keep warm and b) not seeing a AAA truck. i give up and start to head back inside. at this point my Gang has moved closer to a front entrance so i can still see near our chariot while talking to said Gang. i ask min (aka sleepy girl) to call AAA and ask what's the haps. and also that if i haven't come to pick them up within a half hour, to please call AAA again and ask WTF!?! is going on.
  
• i spend another 45 minutes a) walking around the chariot in an attempt to keep warm and b) not seeing a AAA truck. i give up and head back inside. i see Sleepy Girl outside. hey! what's up? um. nothing.
  
• ok, go inside. mom had brilliant idea to call AAA on her cell (no more payphone). but because her phone has an oregon area code, it keeps bouncin her to their road service, not NorCal. she's on hold, but gives me her cell, so that i can keep calling AAA and not have to come inside (possibly missing my hot AAA rendezvous). good work, mom!
  
• finally talk to AAA person who apologizes and says the same thing i heard 90 minutes ago: the driver is still in the area and should be with me shortly. does shortly mean less than a half hour? at this point i've been waiting outside almost 2 hours and i'm really starting to freeze. and get annoyed as all shit.
  
• but yes, shortly means less than a half hour.
  
• fine. i spend another 30 minutes a) walking around the chariot in an attempt to keep warm and b) not seeing a AAA truck. min is with me for part of this, but she gets too cold and has to go back inside. altho i enjoy hugging her for a moment to warm up a bit, it's almost better when she's not there, simply because then i start talking about the whole fiasco and the more i talk, the more agitated and expletive-ridden i get. yeah, you go back inside, honey. ;-)
  
• time to call AAA again. and spend 5 minutes getting rerouted to NorCal AAA again. this time they put me on hold while they try to get ahold of the dispatcher. doobee. dispatch says, driver is finishing a call, should be at your location within 20 minutes tops. i'm pissy (it's been 2.5 hours now) but grateful that this should be over soon.
  
• i spend another 20 minutes a) walking around the chariot in an attempt to keep warm, but REALLY starting to freeze, and b) not seeing a AAA truck. min arrives near the end of this 20 minute stretch and we agree that when i call AAA this next time, if they don't have a good answer about WTF the problem is, we're calling a cab and we'll deal with getting into our chariot on saturday. we can break into our house (awkwardly, but doably) if need be -- and we need to put a stop to this disaster one way or another.
  
• time to call AAA. and spend 5 minutes getting rerouted to NorCal AAA again of course. this time they say, let me get the actual driver on the line. ok sure you do that.
  
• grep -lr 'where the fuck is the driver?' * = no results
  
• like i am surprised by this fact.
  
• AAA says, the last i heard, he was right there. i ask, what do you mean, here? in the parking lot? yep. well i hate to tell you this, but i've been outside for almost 3 hours now, and except for the first driver who blew me off, there ain't been no tow trucks in here. and now there's practically nobody here, so i really can see pretty damn well who's in the lot. AAA lady says, he really should be right there.
  
• what the fuck am i going to say to that? i just told you he's not here! so i hang up and we call a cab. ETA 15 minutes.
  
• i spend another 15 minutes a) walking around the chariot fucking freezing to death, and b) not seeing a AAA truck or cab.
  
• but hark! could that be a AAA truck, coming in from the east? it is! good fuck! get your ass over here, punk.
  
• AAA driver, aka DazedGrizzledAndConfusedEnabled, asks me if i want to get into his truck and ride over to my chariot. my back and feet are killing me and i may be freezing to death but i'm not fucking getting in your truck, creep.
  
• i'm so mad i can't even talk to him.
  
• DazedGrizzledAndConfusedEnabled goes to work on his chariot hacking. chariot is hacked in short order. min comes back over. fill out forms, blah blah, turn on the chariot and get the heat going!
  
• ps. keys had fallen out of bag onto back seat. :-p
  
• pick up parental units and we head home like little zombies. some zombies are more animated than others, and even though i've spent almost 3.5 hours outside tonight and it's waaaay past my bedtime, when we get home, i can't go to sleep for another hour. i'm exhausted but i'm wired.
  
• which is fine with pearl, who of course unexpectedly was in her kennel for much longer than usual. so while we watched a bit of tv, she had to dance about, pee (outside, thank you), dance some more and then cuddle for a bit anyways before she could go to sleep too.
  
• ok that's it.
  
• except that yes, i learned my lesson and the next time i have trouble with AAA, i'll call a cab after no more than 90 minutes. i know this was an exception - in all my years with them, they've been nothing but prompt and reliable. until today.
  
• oh and even better lesson to learn: make sure more than one person has a key. yes. that is good.