The Best Laid Plans Cometh, Life Taketh Away
The Plan for the Weekend:
Drive to Orange County on Saturday. See family and friends. Spend night at friend’s house. Attend baby shower on Sunday. Enjoy food and conversation at restaurant. Drive home.
The Reality:
It’s never good when your car starts to sound like a lawnmower, I suppose. It also isn’t comforting when the speedometer swings back and forth between 0 and 120 like it’s been possessed. Least exciting of all is when these two things happen simultaneously and you are precisely halfway between home and your destination with no friends or family nearby, nor anything besides a stretch of interstate going through the heart of California ag country (ie, middle of nowhere).
I called AAA for a tow which cost me $4 a mile after the first seven miles, and when your starting point is BFE, you go well over that free seven miles (to the tune of $84 – that’ll teach me for not buying the premier membership).
After dropping my car off, I went to the airport where the only open car rental places in Bakersfield were located. They refused to rent a car to me. I didn’t have a major credit card. I had a credit/debit card. Using a debit/credit card required an additional $200-400 deposit (depending on the car rental place), but that money wasn’t on the card because it was in my wallet. Did that help? No. You remember that old song by Wu Tang Clan where they say “cash rules everything around me”? Well, I don’t think car rental places thought much of those lyrics. Three separate car rental places told me they didn’t accept or handle cash. I had two people (husband, mother in law) willing to give their credit card over the phone and receive and sign and fax back an agreement to them, but no, that’s not acceptable either. Talk about uber-lame.
The tow guy gave me a ride to a hotel which had no problem using my debit card and I suddenly found myself with a free night to myself. Hey, a silver lining! I was looking for that! I spent my free-for-a-night evening vegging out and watching The Express and Sex in the City on HBO. I also discovered a TV show on MTV called America’s Best Dance Crew hosted by the guy on Saved By the Bell (the one whose character dated the girl who went on to star in Showgirls) which was entertaining for about 15 minutes before I got irritated by all the commercials.
This morning, I woke up, enjoyed my free breakfast, went swimming, and watched a lot of CNN talk about health care coverage – can I just say that I love James Carville and Mary Matalin?
Husband and the kids drove 3 hours to pick me up and when we neared home, the kids asked to go to the movies, and I thought to myself, why not. Guess what we saw? G-Force. Guess what else? I laughed. On a weekend like this one, you have to take the laughs that come to you.
Funnier than you’d expect. Assuming you expected it to be stupid.
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Sooo lame! Who doesn’t take cc’s over the phone? I’m glad you at least got some quiet time and a swimming pool out of it! (I hate that section of CA, so you have extra sympathy from me!)
How’s your car now?
They don’t take CASH?!?!! Who do they think they are, the airlines? Harrumph. I’m sorry you missed the baby shower.
I used to live in Bakersfield. I feel your pain.
I guess plastic is better than green now, where’s the good old days?
Anyway all is well that ends up well!
i couldn’t live without my AAA plus membership. then again, i’ve had cars that broke down so often i thought tow trucks were circling them like vultures, just waiting for them to die.
we saw g-force the other day too, and i thought i’d hate it, but in the end i was smiling.