Karma Was Against Me Yesterday

A series of unfortunate events... some are costly events.

I don't know if it was Karma in the end or something like an energy meter in a video game, since I was pretty down-trodden all day yesterday about the mildly outlandish text message I sent Barb on Monday night, everything just seemed to feed on each other, creating a small snowball effect that really didn't do me any favours.

I couldn't say work finished too horribly though. I really didn't have any idea of what was going to happen upon leaving the office. There are those days where I have the "Impending Sense of Doom," but it wasn't yesterday.

The plan for the evening was rather simple... I picked up a game of "orthodox" or half-windmill fastball with Alan last night and that was basically going to be it. Meet him and Munden and the batting cages at Shouldice for about 7pm and we'd go from there. Okay, no problem.

The commute home was actually pretty decent. Not as many idiots as the average day might suggest. The day was quite nice and I managed to sneak a quick pic of the core from Memorial Drive, right before the 4th Ave. Flyover.



It was awfully bright out yesterday... and that picture really tells the story. It is sort of bland without any rain for the last week or so. Nothing is really green... it's just dry.

Anyways... went home, made dinner... Karli was at home with her "ex", Mike... didn't seem too ex-like, really. They were talking in that tone of voice which was low and somewhat intimate, although the subject matter didn't really match up... but hopefully you know what I mean.

It occurred to me that it was Tuesday and that the Be Your Own Pet CD would be out... so I ate up in a hurry and packed up the car and drove up to Market Mall. I had never been up there before... lived in Calgary for so long and never had been to Market Mall. I was always wondering why people talked about it so highly... then I found out. It's actually a really nice mall... and it has all the stores I really like... like Jersey City, Play, HMV and a few others. I checked in both HMV & Play... neither store had it, which led me to believe it was a US release only yesterday and it hasn't been released in Canada. It's been in the UK for ages now... but I want it here! I think a trip on eBay will do wonders for me. I really gotta sort that out.

So, without a CD in hand, I went down to the ballpark, stopping at 7-Eleven for a slurpee first... only to arrive there fairly early. I think I was about a half hour early... so I toured around some of the parks, watching some of the ball I was to be playing and some soccer as well. It didn't seem like too long before Alan showed up at the cages, so I walked over there, chatted with him a bit, grabbed my car, brought it down and we chatted a bit more. Munden had called saying he wasn't gonna show up... so that just left me and Alan. Not knowing what time it was, 'cuz I didn't have my cell phone on still, I grabbed my batting stuff out of the trunk and wanted to go hit a few. But for Alan, it was 20 after 7pm and he usually likes to get to the park early to start throwing as soon as possible. So, instead, I turned around to put my stuff back in the trunk and then...

'Oh shit.'

'You didn't?' Alan replied.

'I think I did.' I felt around my pockets... 'Yup, I did.' I had locked my keys in the trunk. Dammit. So it begins. Alan and I poked around the car trying to find the easiest way in. The trunk release wasn't working, it started that a couple weeks ago, so it wasn't as easy as that. Alan didn't have any good tools in his truck at all. We couldn't figure out if we could get the backseat out. Man, talk about frustrating. In the end, Alan let me have his keys to his truck after I drop him off at the diamond to go get my spare set from the house.

I drove home, waited for a bit... turned the phone on, called Chris, see where he was. Then realized, well, I should just go get the house key, since mine were in the car, from Jen at work, so I took the truck over to Starbucks. I would have walked, but I couldn't figure out how to get the key out of the ignition... it seemed like there was a trick that I just wasn't getting. As it turned out, when I shifted the truck into Park, it didn't go all the way, hence the ignition wouldn't lock and I couldn't get the key out. Argh. So, I went over, grabbed the key quickly, back to the house, got the spares, drove back to the ballpark, dropped the truck off, took off back to the car and there on the car, was a parking ticket. Fuck! A $40 ticket since I wasn't technically a customer of the batting cages. No shit... I knew I should have said something to the guys at the desk. Fuck! So, I unlocked the door, then went back to the trunk... the spare key was a service key that wouldn't let me into the trunk! Fuck! That was my only spare key. Now what?!? So, I drove home no problem, played around with the trunk a bit more and then went to speak to Chris, the expert lock-picker. He was busy on the phone, but would come and speak to me after he was done.

So, now I'm utterly dumbfounded by the way the evening had gone. I had no idea when or how I was gonna get into the car's trunk, I was still rather depressed from the text debacle and I honestly thought it couldn't get any worse.

Chris finally came up and we chatted a bit. We looked at the lock of the trunk and inspected the service key and Chris went back down into his place to see some theories about how he could get into the trunk. It wasn't too long before he came up again and suggested that we could try to pick the lock on the trunk and I was alright with that, since my passport (aka. wallet) was in there as well, not to mention my camera and some of my ball stuff which I would have needed for today anyways. We went back to the car again and he took his tools and went to work. I went into the backseat to investigate whether or not for sure I could get through the backseat and into the trunk. My sunglasses were bothering me on the top of my head... I don't even know why I was still wearing them, as it was quarter after 9pm and the sun wasn't exactly overhead. So, I put them into the little holder in the middle console of the car. I investigated and Chris picked... and he beat me! Hoorah! As I sit back to get out of the car, my ass caught the corner of my sunglasses in the console and as I slid to go out... SNAP! FUCK! ARGH!

The resolution to the big problem, which probably would have cost me $50 to fix... now cost me my $180 sunglasses. 'I can't win!!!' I yelled when I get out of the car. I got my stuff out of the car, we investigated the trunk release switch from inside, Chris figures I just have to lube it up a bit, thanked Chris for his hard work, promised him a beer, he promised me a lock picking lesson and went inside to stew over my now sunglasses problem.

I sat and I stewed for a while... Jen headed off to bed at 11pm, so I thought I would too, knowing full well that my restless state that I was in was not gonna get me to sleep any time quick. I just laid down, listened to my mp3 player and eventually, when I don't know, but eventually, I got to sleep.

This morning came way too soon... I picked up my stuff and went out the door. Came to work, no problem... well, besides to no sunglasses... and worked diligently to finish up what was due today and one or two things for tomorrow. I'm thinkin' I might head down to Chinook tonight and see what I can do about my sunglasses. I really like those sunglasses... so I'll see what kind of warranty I had on them and see if I can abuse it a little. That would make me feel a bit better anyways.

Game tonight at 6:45pm... maybe I can take my frustration out on the ball.

I do need something to flip my luck around a bit. Somehow, I don't think it'll be Barb... don't worry, I don't think I will be mentioning her too often anymore.