It's been a while. Right? I feel like it has. Me being the author and all I can only imagine what this must look like. Weekly Dose of Optimism. Yeah. Good one.
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| Yes, he judges me and you can judge me too |
Fact is, life gets in the way folks. School being the biggest and foremost blockage of me getting back to this wonderful creative space that I've so desperately missed. But without any more hoopla, we can get started again!
My first story is actually a pretty frustrating one. I was out having a lovely time with my girlfriend and her friends at dinner (at a restaurant that is frequented by many students at the university) after seeing a delightfully raunchy play that some couple unknowingly brought their two small children too. Needless to say it was rather entertaining watching the squirming in seats (the parents more so even then the children)
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| YOU SHOULD NOT BE WATCHING THIS |
Back to dinner. Lovely conversations, fun moments, and she and I are relatively new, so I was still in the process of meeting some of her friends. It was overall a very pleasant experience.
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| See? Pleasant. |
It didn't even bother us that this place was packed. Like, to the gills. If this place had gills. But being the air breathing mammals that we are, we prefer eating in places above water. (Those dolphins do have it pretty good though)
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| My life is AWESOME |
But this place is always packed. It's the only diner in the area that's open 24/7 and its right across the street from an enormous campus. Hence the reason why it's always packed. Never even occurred to me that PARKING might end up biting me later. Especially when there wasn't any space to park at the actual restaurant lot and I had to park in a Jack in the Box. RIGHT NEXT DOOR. Why is that in caps? First of all I don't like to refer to that button as the caps button, I like to refer to that button as the Samuel Jackson button. Because that's how he talks. Always.
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| Always yelling. |
Second of all it's all capatilized because it becomes important later.
So after we finish enjoying our nice meals and saying goodbye, we head our separate ways. A few went to the dorms they had nearby, and a few came with me to get a ride to places off campus.
So I'm walking. And I have friends walking with me. We're walking together. And as we approach the spot where my car SHOULD be, I start to realize that it's NOT there.
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| 404- Car not found (nerd humor) |
So I do a little deductive reasoning. There's no glass, and I definitely remember locking it. So it wasn't stolen. The only thing I can assume happened is: My. Car. Got. Towed.
IT WAS RIGHT NEXT DOOR.
WHY. WHY DID THIS HAPPEN I CAN'T EVEN-HOW? HOW DID IT GET TOWED WITHOUT ME SEEING IT? WE WERE THERE FOR LIKE, AN HOUR. ONE HOUR!!!!!
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| Yes, yes a little bit | |
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But I did not let the frustration take over. Instead, I just calmed down and realized that I needed to figure out the quickest way to get my car back in order to sustain my livelihood and not inconvenience my friends any more than they had already been inconvenienced. So I found the "Don't park you're car here or we're gonna tow you" signs that everyone seems to always ignore and called this place and figured out where they were. They were clear across town. It was 1 o'clock in the morning.
So who to call? Options were limited, resources scarce, health packs were depleting and our oxygen levels were low. Yes I'm exaggerating a lot but this is how it feels when you have to figure this sort of stuff out.
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| You said it Ming Ming |
I call the only man I can possibly think of who could ever get me out of a jam this thick.
Sam.
Sam is my bro. Not like, literally bros, but he's my best friend.
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Sam and I's relationship is a bit more
mutual than this |
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I knew Sam would still be up, watching some form of TV or playing some kind of video game or just hanging out with his girlfriend. What I didn't expect was an immediate "Yeah I'll be right there" and within fifteen minutes I was getting in his car with my friends on our way to get my car. I don't know if he found a short cut that I'm not aware of, or if he went twice the speed of light but he somehow managed to make this happen.
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replace "INTERNET" with "Rene"
(yes I refer to myself as "THE Rene") |
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So we're driving. And Sam's being pretty awesome about the whole thing. Taking Amanda (my gf) to her dorm to get something, refusing gas money (which I'm still wanting to give to him) and just being very congenial in a very not congenial setting.
And then we get there. A fenced in lot in the middle of the night in a part of town none of us are very familiar with.
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| The impression I got from this place |
So I get to the desk outside and they tell me how much it's going to be in order to get my car back under my possession. To which I have the reaction:
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I've come pretty close...
(Only because there were no horses around...) |
Again, I don't get viscerally upset. And I don't express my anger (better to just call it frustration) in any outward way. But I have to do it. Because at this point, if I want my car back, I don't have a lot of options. They pretty much have me right where they want me.
So I pay it. I get my car back. Sam and I drive side by side into the night until our respective exits, I drop off my friends, and Amanda I enjoy what's left of our crazy evening together. And despite how frustrating this whole ordeal was, I couldn't help but think that the world kept turning without happenstance...
And you know what? I kind of look back and enjoy that night. I was able to handle a very difficult situation with the help of close friends, and honestly, I hadn't seen Sam in a while, so it was really nice to know that he was still there for me and that we were just as close of friends as we had always been. I got my car back, everybody was happy, and I learned a thing or two from the whole experience.
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| how I felt the next day |
So even though things may not be what you want right now, It's important to realize that, maybe you DO need to get your car towed, maybe you do need to have some crazy dumb adventure that leads you in a roundabout way, just to make sure you're still breathing. Life likes to keep you on your toes that way. I say, let it. Even if you can't explain it now, in the end, everything happens for a reason. Even if it's just for a laugh later on...
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| Kind of like life sometimes... |
