JINX!
I jinxed myself last night. As my friend was leaving the bar she started going the wrong way out of the parking lot...where there's a curb going down to the street, not a gentle slope. "Remember when I did that," I said, "I busted my car." And I had, the shock of going over the curb snapping a tie-rod on my already badly misaligned steering system...
Well, I get up to go to work today, start driving, turn a corner, and suddenly I hear the sound of metal dragging on the street. "Oh oh" I calmly say to myself as I turn off as soon as possible, not knowing if what I am hearing is the metal on road sound of a rubberless rim of my tire or something hanging off my engine. I get out of my car, go around to the front, and look underneath to find the EXACT SAME TIE-ROD busted off and hanging there. That's sort of weird.
And so I bring it into the shop and the guy's really pissy about it, telling me how he remembers my car and how bad a shape it is in..."we told you that it needed a lot of work" he says, "I don't know if it'll be covered under warantee" and then a bunch of stuff about my car in a tone that made me think that he had a bad fight with his girlfriend or wife the night before and that he was taking it out on me. You know the tone. "I don't care," I wanted to say, pretty much because I don't. But I didn't. I don't care that he was mean to me, I don't care if I have to pay, I don't care that he had that tone...sayng "I don't care" would've been taken the wrong way and would've blown the thing out of proportion. Yeah, I didn't care, and I don't have a problem being honest about that (it's $75 for God's sake)...but had I said it he wouldn't have taken it how I meant it. My saying "I don't care" would've been interpretted by him as "look you cock-sucking fuck-head, you better fucking give me my fucking shit for free or I'll fucking crack your fucking skull in"...or something to that effect. Which is not at all what I would've meant (or ever said).
Okay, maybe he wouldn't have taken it that personally...but people tend to take what I say as being more harsh for some reason and it's another thing that is weird. It's like the preview for Anger Management where Adam Sandler's sitting on a plane and asking, politiely, for attention from the stewardess. She takes it the wrong way and even though Sandler's being congenial as hell, he gets arrested because of his "anger" problems. See that's one of the things that I have to learn...what I actually say is not nearly as important as how the person that I'm speaking to interprets what I say...and how they interpret something depends on factors that I would have no way of knowing anything about -- this guy at the shop maybe having problems with his old lady or something.
But anyway, it's incredible to me how something as retarded as a minor malfunction of my car can turn into a life lesson. Kinda awesome, kinda makes me sleepy...which is okay because I'm using it as an excuse to not go to work this morning.
I jinxed myself last night. As my friend was leaving the bar she started going the wrong way out of the parking lot...where there's a curb going down to the street, not a gentle slope. "Remember when I did that," I said, "I busted my car." And I had, the shock of going over the curb snapping a tie-rod on my already badly misaligned steering system...
Well, I get up to go to work today, start driving, turn a corner, and suddenly I hear the sound of metal dragging on the street. "Oh oh" I calmly say to myself as I turn off as soon as possible, not knowing if what I am hearing is the metal on road sound of a rubberless rim of my tire or something hanging off my engine. I get out of my car, go around to the front, and look underneath to find the EXACT SAME TIE-ROD busted off and hanging there. That's sort of weird.
And so I bring it into the shop and the guy's really pissy about it, telling me how he remembers my car and how bad a shape it is in..."we told you that it needed a lot of work" he says, "I don't know if it'll be covered under warantee" and then a bunch of stuff about my car in a tone that made me think that he had a bad fight with his girlfriend or wife the night before and that he was taking it out on me. You know the tone. "I don't care," I wanted to say, pretty much because I don't. But I didn't. I don't care that he was mean to me, I don't care if I have to pay, I don't care that he had that tone...sayng "I don't care" would've been taken the wrong way and would've blown the thing out of proportion. Yeah, I didn't care, and I don't have a problem being honest about that (it's $75 for God's sake)...but had I said it he wouldn't have taken it how I meant it. My saying "I don't care" would've been interpretted by him as "look you cock-sucking fuck-head, you better fucking give me my fucking shit for free or I'll fucking crack your fucking skull in"...or something to that effect. Which is not at all what I would've meant (or ever said).
Okay, maybe he wouldn't have taken it that personally...but people tend to take what I say as being more harsh for some reason and it's another thing that is weird. It's like the preview for Anger Management where Adam Sandler's sitting on a plane and asking, politiely, for attention from the stewardess. She takes it the wrong way and even though Sandler's being congenial as hell, he gets arrested because of his "anger" problems. See that's one of the things that I have to learn...what I actually say is not nearly as important as how the person that I'm speaking to interprets what I say...and how they interpret something depends on factors that I would have no way of knowing anything about -- this guy at the shop maybe having problems with his old lady or something.
But anyway, it's incredible to me how something as retarded as a minor malfunction of my car can turn into a life lesson. Kinda awesome, kinda makes me sleepy...which is okay because I'm using it as an excuse to not go to work this morning.
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