If Only I Had a Guitar and a Hound Dog, I Could Write a Song.

Saturday morning, I experienced the worst few hours of my life. Of your life, too, unless you have lost a limb in a horrible machinery accident. In fact, it might take the loss of two limbs to equal the horribleness of my morning.

To set the stage, I had previously agreed to baby-sit for this woman's baby at the high school where her older daughter was having a dance recital. At 8:00 on Saturday morning.

So at about 1:30 AM on Saturday morning, when I'm staggering home from the bar, I check my messages and find out that she left me a message saying she might not need me, as her husband might be able to make it to the recital after all, and that she'd call and let me know. At 7:30 AM, I wake up, head pounding, and check my messages. Nothing. I call, get a hold of her, and she says yes, she still needs me. So I get up, get dressed (barely), take some aspirin, and head out the door.

At 7:45 AM, about two miles from my house, my tire blows out on the interstate. Fuck fuck fuck. At this time, I realize I left my cell phone at home. Fuck again. So I get out and try to flag someone down. Did I mention that this morning it happens to be TWENTY EFFING DEGREES out? Apparently, I look extremely dangerous, because I'm standing in the cold for about fifteen minutes before someone finally stops. First I call the mom to tell her I'll be a bit late, and she says it's fine. I call AMBF, expecting him to be my knight in shining armor and come rescue me, and...he doesn't answer his phone. Because it's 8:00 on a Saturday morning. And no one in their right mind is up. And I don't have my cell phone, so I don't know anyone else's number to call. I give the guy back his cell, and he speeds away, before I could ask for a ride anywhere.

So. I guess I'll be trying to change the tire. Which I've done before, and can do easily, except, again, it's 20 degrees out. And I have no hat, no gloves, no scarf.

So I try to change the tire. Only Volkswagen put these black plastic caps on the lugnuts, and I can't get them off. There is no tool in the kit that matches the opening on them. And it's cold. And it's early. And I'm hungover. I'm at this point just crouching by the tire, holding a tire iron, staring at the wheel, willing it to remove itself. My hands are blue, and I'm on the verge of tears. Which is stupid, it's just a tire, right? But I was being foiled by bits of black plastic.

Finally, someone sees me and pulls over. Super nice old guy with a long white beard. He has it all, the super deluxe tire iron, the nice tire jack, and, most importantly, GLOVES. He and I change the tire in a jiffy (except for one bit, where the tire won't come off, even with both of us kicking it, but he gets some really heavy tool he had in his truck and bangs on it and it eventually comes off). I'm finally good to go. A few minutes late, but good to go. Like the CrunchWrap Supreme at Taco Bell.

So I get to the street that the high school is on, and can't find it. I know it's on this street, but I missed it somehow. I stop at a gas station to ask, and they tell me it's a few miles down the road. Which seems strange, because I didn't think it was that far, but whatever. Gas station attendants are always right. I find the high school that they were talking about, and it's the wrong one. At this point, I'm just like, "Fuck it, I'm going home. Screw this." I turn around and start driving home, and on the way back I see the right school. So I go in, and look for the mom. There are hundreds of people milling about and like a gazillion dressing rooms. I can't find her, so I borrow someone's cell to call. No answer. I leave a message and keep looking. A few minutes later, I see her daughter, who leads me to her mom, who tells me, "Oh! I just called you. My husband made it after all, so I don't need you."

Seriously. Fucking A. Fucking fuckety fuckhead. Fuck fuck.