Today just wasn't my day. You know the kind I mean. We all have them. Things just don't go right and it just keeps piling up. That was my day. I mean you can't make this up. Today actually started out pretty well. I had to get up and shower before 8:00 this morning in order to get to a Community Council meeting on time. As part of my role as the First Year Class President I am their representative to the Community Council, which is a group of students how address the needs of the community while also planning events that bring the community together. It is our form of student government. Anyways, the meet was an hour long so no big deal. I went with my friends Lauren and Jessica to the dinning hall for breakfast after the meeting. After that Jessica and I headed to the commuter lounge, a few rooms dedicated for the students who commute to campus, and she helped me look up a few articles so that I could finish my history paper. I found what I needed and went back to my room to finish my paper. Things were still going well at this point. I met up with Maura and went to lunch around 11:30. We had a quick bite to eat and then back to my room so I could finish my paper before a reception with the Alumni Council at 1:15. I finished my paper by 1:00 and I was feeling good, glad to finally have it finished and ready for Jessica to proofread. I offered to give her a ride back to her apartment after the reception, where she would look over my paper and help me edit it and make sure all my footnotes are in order, this is the first time I have had to use footnotes in this new citation format which is confusing to me. So I packed up my computer and all my sources and went to my car to drop it off so I wouldn't have to carry around a full backpack...and that's when the (expletive deleted) hit the fan. You know what I mean.
I walk up to my car and at first everything looks kosher. I put my bag in the back and I looked up to the passenger seat and my glove compartment is open, my center console is open and all of the contents from both places was covering the seat and the floor. Who the (expletive deleted) was in my car??? I immediately looked at the radio, it seemed fine and it wasn't tampered with. I walked around the car and look at the windows and the locks, still no sign of a forced entry. When I first arrived on campus, almost two months ago now, Jason had warned me to not leave anything valuable in my car and if I did make sure that it was well hidden. There are a number of homeless people in the area and break-ins are not uncommon. I was little relieved after walking around my car and seeing no damage. Since they did not steal my radio or tried to hot wire my car, I figured it was probably a junkie looking for something small so they could make a quick buck to get their next fix. As messed up as it sounds, especially because that was the thought running through my head, this is typical behavior of drug addicts that are forced to live on the streets. Small time thefts to support their habit and which then gets them through the day. If someone really wanted to make some good money they would have tried to steal the car. This is the seedy underbelly of not only Berkeley but the Bay Area in general. It is part of our responsibilities as Christians to reach out and help those in need and there are a lot of social cervices available in the area. Which in a way that could also be a part of the problem. If the services are easy to obtain and generous in nature then more people will stay in the area longer, as long as the services last. Anyways that is a whole other discussion for another night, back to my story.
So I thought to myself, I should start my car and make sure there was nothing else up with it. I put my key into the ignition and it did not budge. I tried again, and nothing. My car was boiling hot because it was in the sun all morning and the windows had been up. Since I couldn't turn the key I couldn't engage the battery and roll down the window. I also could shift the car in neutral to push it out of the parking spot. So I called my good friend and former coworker, Rochie, and hoped that he might be able to help me out. After twenty minutes of trying all sorts of tricks I was still stuck. It was great to talk to Rochie again. We had been pretty close friends during my time at GS so it was nice to still be in touch. After talking with him I called a Chevy dealership in Concord, about twenty minutes west on the other side of the hills. They couldn't help me and they suggested I get AAA to tow my car over there so they could look at it. That is when things became even more messed up.
I called AAA and initiated a roadside assistance call. I told them I was at ridge road in Berkeley and that I needed my car towed to Concord Ave in Concord. They said ok, it will be about sixty miles but my Gold Membership would cover it. Now at that point I should have realized something was awry since Concord was only twenty minutes away via the highway and certainly not sixty miles. But I let it slide and told them I would be waiting. It was 1:30 at this point. After an hour I get a call from a Rhode Island number and it was the dispatch asking me where I was because the tow truck driver was on Ridge Road and couldn't see me. I walked over and didn't see a truck. They call me back, the driver still can't find me. At this point something clicks in my head and I ask what state is the driver in??? Massachusetts. Because my membership is based in Southern New England my call was routed to their dispatch so they thought I was in Berkeley, MA wanting a tow to Concord, MA. Wrong, I was in Berkeley, CA wanting a tow to Concord, CA.
They transferred me over to the Bay Area dispatch and initiated a new roadside call. It was now about 3:00PM. An hour later I was still standing around waiting for the tow truck. I finally decided to go back to my room and do some reading when I received a call from the truck driver, except he wasn't driving a tow truck. Instead of a tow truck they sent the battery recharging/replacement pick-up. He was looking at the write up for my call and realized that he couldn't do anything and that he needed to send a tow truck. I told him, really...of course I need a tow truck. Man, that sucked. It was now 4:00PM.
By 5:00PM the tow truck still had not arrived and I was beginning to get impatient. I called them back and they told me that they were extremely busy. My tow truck had a Corvette on it and it was on its way to drop it off at its repair shop and then it would come to get mine. They said it could be thirty, forty-five or even sixty minutes. Just great. I decided that it was time to replace the headlight bulb in Jason's car while he was away. It took me a little longer than I had originally thought but I got it done. By 6:00PM the truck driver called me and asked where I was and immediately I thought, no not this again. He found me and looked at my car. After about ten minutes of doing the same tricks I had tried five hours ago, he told me that he couldn't do anything and that I had to call a locksmith. He gave me the number of a guy that he went to high school with and whose family was in the locksmith business. Now I didn't know if that was code for something else, but he called for me and by 6:15 he was on his way.
I had made plans to meet up with Lauren to grab something to eat so I hopped in the shower and by 6:30PM I was outside in the parking lot, again, and waited for the locksmith. At 7:00PM he called me and asked me again, where are you? No, no, no...not this again. He found me rather quickly and he got to work on my car. He ended up taking out the key cylinder in the ignition and replaced it with a new one. By 8:45 my car was done, albeit with a drained battery that I will have to jump start in the morning and drive around to recharge it, but my car was fixed. Finally, after seven hours of lost drivers, drivers in other states, misdirected calls, and general bad luck, my car was fixed and time to grab food. All was good after that.
In the long run I after all that time I saved myself some money. While the tow would have been covered by AAA, I would have had to pay a lot more at the dealer more money for labor and parts. It was a good deal because the guy who fixed my car got it done and used OE parts. Not too bad. I am off to bed, only God knows what's going to happen tomorrow.
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