"If it weren't for bad luck..."

I'd have no luck at all. Truly.

Thursday night my car died on the way home. I didn't even get a mile away. And I was going to pick up take-out food for dinner, so I had to first call the restaurant and say "Please cancel that spaghetti order--my car is dead." They were nice about it. Then I called my roadside assistance, which I so presciently signed up for this summer. (I've already used it twice now.) I spoke to a young man for whom English was obviously a second language, and in addition, he seemed to be dyslexic. It was quite frustrating, saying the zipcode over and over while he repeated it back incorrectly. I thought we had it all figured out, then he called back to tell me the zipcode I had given him for my mechanic was "over 30 miles" from where I was. At which point I lost it. I had given him the same zipcode for each location, seeing as how they were only a mile apart. I screamed the zipcode at him several times. When the wrecker finally showed up, the driver had a completely different destination address than the one I had given Carlos. Completely different. Good thing I was planning to ride along to the shop with the driver, otherwise who knows where my car would have ended up? Eventually I managed to find a friend to give me a ride home, and he didn't mind driving the extra mile back down the road so I could wipe up the puddle of antifreeze I had left on the side of the road. I saw a stray cat hanging out across the street, so I couldn't in good conscience leave a pool of liquid death for him to lap up. I now have a new water pump and timing belt, and I didn't really need that $369 anyway, right? (Wrong. Oh, so wrong.)

The day my car was in the shop, I had scheduled an appointment to make a demo recording for a company that provides on-hold messages for companies, so I had to beg rides back and forth. Thank goodness for agreeable co-workers. The recording itself went well; was kind of fun, actually. They had me do several different styles to show my versatility. "Pleasant, conversational." "Perky and upbeat." "Sultry and husky." And "Mom." Hee. Apparently all moms sound alike. Maybe I'll actually get some work. That would be nice, since my evil car will almost certainly need another influx of cash soon.

In other news, Peeping Tom the spider has disappeared. I figure after being immortalized in blog, he set his sights on a higher existence, and headed off for the ritzy part of town. Or he died. But it's more fun to think of him with a little suitcase and a dream, heading south to seek his fortune.