A Blog about Nothing

For the past week and a half, my check engine light has been on. It shines up at me like a dysfunctional doomsday clock; I have no idea when this emergency will actually occur. Every once and awhile it will take some sort of coffee break and turn off for a few hours or even days. But it always comes back.

I decided to get an oil change today in case that might be the problem, since I'd checked and the oil was pretty dirty. Inevitably that means meandering around Walmart like Novalee Nation in Where the Heart Is. It's not happy.

So I decided to hoof it in the nasty 117 degree heat across the parking lot to the comic book store to pick up the new Buffy, Angel, and Spike comics (shut. it.) and back so that I had something to keep me busy for an hour.

I got back and my car hadn't moved, so I settled into the waiting room where I was joined in minutes by two unattended children. Both were maybe 6 or 7 years old, one skinny and one sadly humongous. Skinny immediately went over to the TV and turned it up and started flipping channels. Soon he realized that the only channel he was going to get was PBS, so he left it and went to a chair next to his sibling and started in on the ice cream sandwich he had been given in lieu of parenting.

You know what comes next; one kid with an ice cream sandwich, and another with a Klondike bar. It was only a matter of time before the entire floor was covered in chocolate. Still no parent in sight. I got a phone call so I took it away from the little brats. When I was done I came back in to finish my comics (I said shut. it.) only to find the floor covered in smeared chocolate (nothing like walking in it after you've dropped everything.) and....wait for it....

covered in ants.

Now I can't even sit down and read. I have to go outside, stand, and read.

Thankfully my car was done a few minutes later, and I opened my car door to find they had set my parking brake.

Had this been my old car, no big, it doesn't even work. But this was my new, hard, obnoxious car. The doors close on you when you aren't looking, I have the bruises to prove it. I sighed and went to work on trying to get the parking brake off.

15 minutes later I was throwing things and yelling. I got out of the car to head inside to ask someone to help me when I saw this huge man, the size of a lightweight sumo wrestler, crossing the parking lot. I begged him to help me, and he obliged.

I've always relied on the kindness of strangers.