it’s hard being the dancing queen

That’s what I was all set to write about yesterday. I was going to talk about Sunday’s wedding reception and how people who don’t normally get on the dance floor become Michael Flatley the second cake is served.

But then my car broke down, and I don’t feel like writing about being the stage queen anymore. Instead of singing “Dancing Queen,” now I can hear whenever I put the key in the ignition my car singing “Take a Chance on Me.”

Okay, so my car won’t start yesterday and I have to get a ride to work. I had found a ride home and was supposed to pick up my friend after work. My boyfriend said he replaced the battery before he went to work, so I got a ride home from a co-worker. Now, I had a show last night– Laura House’s Going Away Benefit, and I didn’t want to miss that… so I got home and my co-worker drove away… and my car wouldn’t start. Luckily two women were leaving their apartment just at the same time, and I got them to jump my car. I went to the bar to pick up my friend, but he could not hear me honking outside. So I decided to pull around into the alley, leave my car running long enough for me to run in and get him, and my car would be just fine. Well, in my haste to jump out of the car and come back without it being stolen, I forgot to put the car in park. It starting rolling forward towards this Jetta, and I had to jump in my car all Luke Duke style and put on the brakes. Just as I stopped the car before it hit the car in front of me, the car died again.

My friend came out and tried to jump the car. It wouldn’t start. We kept trying and trying and then decided that since it was a brand new battery, my alternator must be broken. Now, I have free towing and roadside assistance with my cell phone, but I left my cell phone at home. So now the deal was, we were to go to the show, and my friend would take me home after the show, pick up my phone, drive back to the bar and get my car towed. Now the car is kind of half-in/half-out of the alley, and my friend decides that if I put the car in neutral, he’ll just push it into the alley. I explain to him that the car is on an incline, and he is about 5’7″, and that the car will roll him over. He tells me he’ll be fine, but to watch him through the rear view mirror. I put the car in neutral, it started rolling backwards and my friend began waving his arms frantically. It took three of us to push the car into a less-likely-to-be-towed position.

So I started drinking. People kept buying me drinks because I looked so pitiful. The price of the battery that afternoon had insured that I was pretty broke until next week (ever been to a wedding and didn’t end up broke afterwards?). Instead of forgetting my troubles, however, I started wallowing in them.

So three of us are driving to the show in a two-seater car. Very comfy. The car was a convertible. We were late for the show, so driving pretty quickly. My hair looked like hell. My face felt like hell. And I had all my stuff from work and the show over my shoulder.

The show went well, and we were over pretty early on in the night. So I went to find my friend… couldn’t find him. I thought, “Well, I’ll go check his car.”

Gone. Gone, gone, gone, daddy, gone. He and his girlfriend had left. And I was stuck at a comedy club. Oh, and they drove off with some of my stuff in their trunk. So I started drinking some more, because my other friends were like, “Dude, that sucks. Wanna beer?” And they’d buy me a beer. The “Get-pamie-drunk” fund was much more successful than the “Get-pamie-home” fund. If you put my fund with Laura’s fund, we raised some serious cash in the hiz-ouse last night.

So I start calling around, and then finally get a hold of another friend, who is at the same bar that my car is stuck at, who is sitting with my friend who left me at the club. Friend who left comes back to pick me up, while friend at bar contacts my boyfriend at work to come and be my hero yet again.

I got back to the bar and my car jump started without a problem. Then my boyfriend came by and cleaned the battery connections with some SOS pad or something, and now everything works fine.

But it took all day and all night yesterday for everything to work fine. And I was tired. I’m still tired.

I depend on my car so much, and when it doesn’t work, I feel really lost. Pitiful. And trapped. Like I have no way out.

So, I was the dancing queen at the wedding reception, did I mention that? It was just the most I’ve ever danced at a wedding. We had a blast. Jumping around, smoking and drinking, making total fools out of ourselves. It was great to just sweat for a couple of hours. But I was paying for it on Monday. The spine does not like you to surprise it with half an hour of “The Twist” followed by “The Butt” when you have only been using it to do “The Web” for three months prior.

I’ve also been rather busy at work this week, which always kind of chaps my hide, because I’d rather just sit here and type. But my job is one of those that interrupts you rather than something you can do and then you go and do this, and then you come back to this. Waiting for the phone to ring makes your brain go a little crazy.

Consequently, I apologize for missing yesterday’s entry. I just want a nap.

But I wrote a song. It’s to the tune of “Mo Money, Mo Problems” by the Notorious B.I.G.:

“I don’t know what my car wants from me it’s like the more miles I drive across the more problems we see.”I’m also a fan of my boyfriend’s alternate version:

“I don’t know what my Mazda wants from me it’s like the more money I spend on it the more problems I see.” Stupid car. “my car sucks cash, too”

Leave a Reply

Comments (

)