Seriously! What is it with me and animals? And I don't just mean any animal, I mean vermin, specifically.
You may recall a previous
post dealing w/ some rodents and my car. After that infestation, I now wonder whether my car has a beef with furry little (and not so little) creatures.
Okay, here's what happened. I was driving w/ Becca and Adam to a friend's bowling birthday party - Becca in the front seat, Adam in the back. As I was driving, I looked down for just a few seconds to adjust my iPod in its adapter and when I looked up, there, in the center of my lane staring at me w/ a wide-innocent (if a mite vacant) expression was a full-sized raccoon. Did he run? No. Like a proverbial deer, he was transfixed by my headlights and in the .2 seconds I had between seeing his mug and reacting, my car had already made up its mind to end the life of this pitiful creature.
My immediate outward reaction was this:
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!", just as my car's reaction was this:
"Badump Bump Chunk!!"
Inwardly I thought, "I could swerve, there are no other cars on the road. I could slam on my brakes. I could... AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
As I kept screaming, I began stroking the side of my face, like I was my own mother (perhaps somehow hoping it really
would be alright that I'd just destroyed one of God's creations) and I heard "Yup, he's a goner!" from the backseat. Adam had turned around to get a look at the twitching lump of animal my car had left behind. Apparently, it did not have the wherewithal to scamper away, so the prognosis wasn't good. As I continued to breathe small shrieks of horror at what I had just done, we heard a noise coming from underneath my car, "...scrape...scrape...flap...flap...flap..."
"Oh my gosh! Is he stuck under my car? Is he hanging on w/ one little paw, desperately trying to claw his way back into life?" I shrieked.
"Naw, he was definitely back there on the road", replied Adam.
We pulled into a parking lot and Adam gallantly crawled under the car to investigate the possibility of a ninja assassin raccoon...or worse, raccoon bits left to flap against the pavement. With the use of Becca's stellar cell phone light, he determined that there actually weren't any animal bits and that it was some kind of (okay, my ignorance of cars is going to come out here) metal plate that attaches to the bottom and likely protects the underbelly of the car from various things (see my
earlier post for what kinds of things I may be referring to) was hanging loose and dragging on the ground. He managed to shove it back into place, but now I need to make sure I can get that fixed good and tight. I don't want to have rodents nesting in my air filter again.
But SERIOUSLY!
What is the DEAL?! Does my car emit animal pheromones or something? AUGH!
And after such an ordeal, you might think that my night couldn't possibly get any worse, right? Not right.
Not really thinking ahead to the fact that this was a
military fort we were going to, we were unprepared when we got there and they asked each person to show his/her ID, in order to gain access to the bowling alley where our friend's party was being held. Sigh. I had my ID, as did Becca, but poor Adam had had his wallet stolen not long before. So no ID. Double sigh. He generously decided to hang out a friend's house nearby while Becca and I went back to bowl. So after dropping him off, we made our way back to Fort Myer to show our birthday support of our good friend by rolling a large resin ball down an alley toward some penguin-shaped plastic pins. After the guards finished laughing about the fact that we'd ditched the dude w/ no ID so we could go bowling and inspected my car, we hopped in and entered the base. Silly us. We forgot to ask for directions to the bowling alley! Our hopes that we would find simple signage pointing the way were unproductive and we spent the next 10 minutes or so driving around the fort. Becca was busy admiring how charming the housing was on base, while I was becoming increasingly more annoyed and anxious to just get OUT OF MY CAR!!! She laughed and said something like, "It's not that bad!" I responded w/ something like, "It's not that good either. This night has so far been a total bust and I just need a lame game of bowling to cleanse my palate." Finally, after asking a couple for directions (and realizing that we'd turned too soon back at the beginning of our aimless drive), we headed for the bowling alley. Just as I realized I had overshot the parking lot by a bit and was planning to turn around, I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror. It would appear that I just couldn't catch a break. I pulled over, put my car in park and looked at Becca, at which time we both just burst out laughing. I mean, could our night get
any more like a cheesy 80s comedy?
The cop told me I had been going just a little fast and asked if we were lost. I just told him that we had been looking for the bowling alley and was admittedly a little lost. He kindly just told me to turn around and pull into the parking lot and to slow down. I was more than happy to oblige.
WHEW! So there you have it. Oh, and while I am not and never plan to be a stellar bowler, it
did, in fact, cleanse my palate and make for a very fun night! All in all - it was one crazy night. Ever have one of those?
And that's what I have been - truly musically uplifted! I recently went to the best concert of my life. Bold words, I know. What made it so? Well, a combination of things, really; venue, the location of our seats, company and most importantly, the performers. Answer? The Birchmere, front and center (thank you, Lisa!), Lisa Fraser (a musician herself, great appreciator of fabulous music, and just all around fun to be with), and
Ryan Montbleau and Martin Sexton. Sigh. I've been in love w/ Martin's music for about 9-10 years, but this was the first time that I was able to see him in concert. Speechless. And the opening singer, Ryan Montbleau - a great musician with a really sweet sound. He sounds like he's on his way to becoming as good as our dear Mr. Sexton. Both performed solo, stripped of any fancy-shmancy bands, but Martin did have a nifty microphone that created reverb. The end result was perfection.
