Boy, Interrupted

Title: Boy, Interrupted. Based on a true story.

Date: Today
Time: Approximately 4:30pm
Location: Driving from Bed Bath & Beyond, en route to Target
Driver: Katie, wearing sunglasses, a frown, and shoes that started out comfy but are now painful
Passenger: Nick, general direction-giver, human GPS, and patient boyfriend

Background: Nick has a cold. A bad, bad cold. Being the lovely thoughtful person that I am, I dragged him out to buy a knife block set and spend hours wandering stores. This is us driving out of the parking lot by the mall.

* * *
Katie, peering around to make sure all stupid squishable pedestrians have vacated the vicinity, finally turns attention to sick boyfriend who has been quieter and quieter.

"How are you feeling?" I ask, glancing over.

"Crappy," sick boyfriend starts, turning towards me. "I'm pretty sure I have a fever, my throat hurts, I keep sneezing, and my nose is a faucet."

"You poor thing!" I nod sympathetically, patting his knee.

He continues, "I'm pretty sure my leg fell off back in the cutlery section of Bed Bath & Beyond, I'm seeing quadruple, and --"

"CRAP! NICK, DO I TURN RIGHT? Shit! I'm turning right. Was that right? Should I have gone straight?"

Nick gives me a calm, patient stare. The way you would look at someone who has traumatically lost their sanity and you feel pity and compassion for them, and no matter what they do you will never lose your temper because that would be like shouting at a dumb dog.

"Katie, open your eyes." He waits while I comply. "Turn left here. Now go straight. Move into the left lane. Good. Go straight again. Now left, straight, then turn right here and now you should know where we are."

I wipe the sweat off my forehead dramatically. "Phew! Good thing I have you!"

You can practically hear his eyes rolling.

I glance hopefully towards sick boyfriend. "So, sweetie, what were you saying about how you were feeling?"

"Nope. Forget it. I'm not gonna talk to you anymore. You don't listen anyways."

* * *

The End

Guess Who Sold Her Car?!?!

ME! ME! ME! I sold my car!!! My very first car, my silvery blue Toyota Camry 1994 car, my car that grandma and grandpa sold to us (for a very nice price), that car, is sold. To a very nice man with a two year old daughter. I put the car out for sale with Nick at 4pm, got a call at 6pm, and he drove it at 7pm, and then called at 9pm to say that he wanted to buy it. No haggling, all very simple, and breezy. And he paid in cash!



Huzzah!

I also got the flu, and went camping with Nick's family in Fort Bragg, and then went on a vacation with my family, all of which I will post pictures of shortly. But I am soooo excited because I sold my car!!! (Except now I really ought to pay for my new car since I have moola. Drat!)

Holiday Car Adventures

We drove to LA for the holidays. Something pretty exciting happened too! (Not getting presents, although that was awesome). 

So, we left in the Honda Odyssey van.

We arrived twelve hours later--SIX HOURS LONGER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE TAKEN--in a Mercury Marquis. 

Yep.

In that sedan we had squished our four family members, presents, bags, food, and two retrievers that spent the last four hours of the trip lying on our laps--since there was no room at all. 

Guess why! Guess! Guess!

When we were about halfway to LA, I was driving, and all of a sudden I heard a quiet thunk sound from the engine and then nothing happened when I was accelerating except the rpm's needle shot up to the danger zone. Instead of going 80 mph all of a sudden I was going 60mph. Since all the cars were going more than 80 I immediately clicked on my emergency lights and after we realized that all I was doing was revving and not accelerating, even in lower gears, I moved into the break down lane and we coasted for maybe 1/2 of a mile total before stopping. 

Dad looked in the engine and we were leaking fluid and our transmission was shot. AAA came forty-five minutes later, hooked us up to the tow truck, and towed us an hour and a half away to a auto mechanic that had a transmission shop. (We rode way high up in the truck! And the dogs were alone in the car--Kali was sitting in the front smiling at everything she saw, and we couldn't see Sage, she was probably hiding). 

So here's another cool part!

This happened Tuesday--and they cannot look at it until MONDAY! SIX WHOLE DAYS LATER! And they are quoting us at LEAST $2,500 for the transmission and $800 for a cylinder thingy. 

(So we might get a new car! Woooooot!)

So we were still hours away from LA with a broken van full of presents and dogs. We called at least four rental places and the ones that had big cars didn't take dogs and wait, sorry, we don't have any big cars, just a Hyundai Sonata, and we close soon anyway, bye! 

Finally we got ahold of a Mercury Marquis--a big sedan. We had to leave only a few things, but did have the dogs sleeping on us the whole rest of the way. 

(Note! Sage did NOT vomit on this trip at all! They were incredibly well behaved!) 

So we arrived and heard the story of our relative's day in Disneyland--complete with one person getting sick from the rides and while driving home throwing up all over the side of the car! 

And that is why our trip took us two times longer than normal. Yaaaay for holiday travel! 

Bleeeeeaaaagh. 

Happy Birthday to Me!

This post is kind of belated since I turned twenty a few days ago! I was hoping inspiration would strike and that I would compose a brilliant post . . .but nope. It didn't. So . . .

I'm twenty now.

No longer a teenager.

Is it sad this makes me feel old? I want to say "I'm twenty-teen" because for so long "teen" has been tacked on to the end of the number. Now it's not, and it feels weird!

I am spoiled. I got perfume, a one-hour massage, penguin socks, two (delicious chocolate!) cakes, lots of clothes, four pairs of shoes, lipgloss, cocoa, Spanish software, a manicure/pedicure set with OPI nailpolish, and I bought myself a car. Sorta. It was my grandma's, and I am getting it for a discount, and I haven't paid YET. But oh, I will. But oh also, it is so pretty and shiny and new!

I feel very lucky in my family and boyfriend and friends! Thank you everybody for spending the year with me!