Weekend Recap December 19, 2006

Wow, hi.

So, I don’t really know where do begin. With the Road Trip From Hell that ultimately became the Patriots Game From Heaven? Or the fact that I might have a new job?

Decisions, decisions.

However, since just in case I don’t decide to leave I’m going to still need this job and therefore do not want to get fired for blogging about a new one, you get Clink’s Weekend, Recap Style.

So, in all of my girlfriend awesomeness, I got the Boy tickets to see the Patriots at Foxboro. And, which in hindsight was another act of Clink Brilliantness, I selected the last home game of the season, against the Houston Texans, because it was almost guaranteed to be a Patriots win. What can I say, I wanted to ensure that I would not have to endure four hours of alternately mopey and rage-filled Boy on the drive home.

We decided to leave early on Saturday morning so that we could spend Saturday afternoon and evening with the Boy’s family and friends.

Fate, it seems, had other plans.

About a half an hour into our trip, just when we thought we were home free after having escaped hellish Manhattan traffic and good lord would the tourists just GO HOME or LEARN TO CROSS AT THE RIGHT TIME, we ended up on the side of the road. In a seedy section of the Bronx. In a construction zone. With a flat.

At first the Boy was all “I am man. I fix tire.” While he was busy jacking up the car and doing whatever the hell one does when they have a flat, I was in the passenger’s seat, bawling. You see, the cars on the curve were going really fucking fast and if one of them sputtered out and hit the Boy, he would be really fucking dead.

Eventually, the Boy gave up and joined me in the car as we waited for the tow truck to arrive. “45 minutes,” we were told. An hour and a half later, we noticed a tow truck cut across four lanes of I-95 traffic and reverse towards us at such a speed that I actually screamed and braced myself for impact.

Out jumped a tow truck driver who, if not the same man, is a close cousin of the one in Adventures in Babysitting. Awesome.

We hopped into the tow truck with him and proceeded to listen to a semi-coherent rant about how he’s happy we’re skinny people because he’s been picking up fat people all day and don’t fat people know they’re the ones that cause the flat tires? Porker pigs, he called them. Lots of porker pigs on the side of the road and next time he sees a bunch of porker pigs he is just going to drive by because they need to stop eating, stupid porker pig Americans.

Like I said, awesome.

The driver dropped us off in the Bronx, on the corner of Mugged & Murdered. The “automobile repair shop” was really just a shed and a guy and about five tires on a rack.

Immediately, I had to pee. Which, of course. Because my bladder is the most inconvenient and also suckiest bladder ever and of course I would have to pee at the absolute worst time. I asked the owner of the shed if he had a bathroom. He pointed in the general direction of the interior of the shack. I made the Boy come with me and stand guard and also hold my coat and my bag because I did not want either one touching any surface.

You can see why:

Eventually, the Boy had to run to a bank to take out money (because, SHOCKINGLY, the shed did not accept credit cards) so I decided to sit in the car, with the doors locked, while I waited for him. Except, when I went to open the door, the door did not open. In fact, none of them did. In a grand finale to what was quickly turning into the Morning of Suck, we had locked the keys. In the car.

Luckily, for an extra fifty bucks, the generous shed owner would put his skills to use by picking the lock with a wire hanger.

Approximately $450, two “new” (“those don’t look new to me, Boy” “you want to start a fight with Shed Boy, Clink? They’re new. Let’s go”) tires and two very nervous, very ripped off Boy & Clink later, we were on the road again. A little worse for the wear with bruised egos (him, at having failed to change the tire himself) and nausea (me, at having had to urinate in such a facility as above), we finally made it back on the road and up to Boston without incident.

Only to spend the night in a haunted hotel room. But that’s a story for another time. I have a lot of job-related thinking to do.