Monday vent

That's allowed right? It is Monday right? People are entitled to vent on Mondays? Actually, this is my blog, I can vent about whatever I want, whenever I want. Really shouldn't be during work hours though, but hell ... So my daughter turns 13 on Saturday. And my car is still broken. It makes it from A to B easy enough, but to C then D then E etc, not so much. And I can't take it on the highway if it's already been running for 30 minutes. Other than that, he runs great. Buy a new car already? Sorry, no can do. I've been watching my budget for the last few months since I got the bad news that the car was sick and was so hoping to get a new car. Unfortunately, I can't quite afford it. Technically, I can afford it, but I'll be scrimping on stuff that I don't want to scrimp on. Maybe scrap my movie channels, maybe my black berry data package, or worse ... fire my cleaners, quit smoking, or grow my beaver hair out ... and screw that. I work hard for my money, ok I work for my money and I strongly believe it is my right to spend it on what I chose. I could pay someone to suck on my toes if I damn well feel like it. So, all that being said. I am going to throw as little money as I can absolutely get away with to get my car back in decent condition. And then wait it out. I've had so much bad car luck that a building would fall on my brand new car with warranty and it would get totalled anyway, so back to square one ... finding a cheap, I mean, inexpensive transmission and bumper for my car. My dilema and what it has to do with my daughters birthday? Well I have 6 kids to drop off at Calaway Park on Saturday. Then I have to drive back home to fix up the basement for her surprise .... nothing like handing that privacy over to a 13 year old girl just in time for unsupervised summers, but good thing I was a bad-ass teenager because I know better and the first thing getting done down there are the bars on the windows! Second thing, security cameras that I will be able to watch from work. Ok, I'm not that crazy ... more like, I don't have that much money to spare, but the bars are as far as it goes. Anyway, after the giant rotters are hyped up on cotton candy and sick from the rides, I have to get them all back to my house for a sleepover. Not wanting to bother anyone with sharing this daunting task (have you ever been in a vehicle with a bunch of teenage girls) and not being able to fit 7 people in my lil car that wont make four 30-mile trips, I am renting a mini-van. I'm already saving half-price on the admission for 6 kids at the park by finding an on-line coupon, am making them pay for their own food while they are at the park (OH YES I AM!), and saving even more money by serving no-name hot dogs without buns, water, and crackers for the sleepover for that night. Oh yeah, did I mention I am allowing SIX ... yes 6 teenagers to sleep at my house Saturday night. It's all good though, there's a drain and a sink in the laundry room with a door if they need to use the washroom, there will be new bars on the windows, and I can just push the couch up against the basement door so they can't get up. Then I can sit in the garage smoking and drinking until I'm sure they are asleep. So, yes, I can afford to fork out the cash to rent a mini-van for the day. Now ... after all that build up to my vent, I don't even care about it anymore. But will share anyway. Enterprise, who I've used often in the last few years and even dropped a crappy little Accent off to them this morning, would not reduce the amount of the mini-van rental to what I had just seen on-line. JUST seen, like seconds before calling them. It went up by more than $20 dollars in seconds .. seriously wtf? And they wouldn't lower it. I'm loyal to places I like, so I booked the damn thing anyway, then went on an internet search for a better deal. Which I found at Avis. $3 less than the original price I found at Enterprise. And because I did some slight trash talking of Enterprise, just across the street from them, they lowered it a further $7. For a total difference of close to $25. I booked with Avis and called Enterprise back to cancel and tell them why and they said OK, thanks for calling and let me go. Wtf!? Way to keep your loyal customers coming back! Whatever.

ahhh, The performance review!

I can't help but feel uncomfortable when the human resources lady is roaming our floor, even more so when she's in my supervisors office with the door closed. It's bad enough knowing she's in the building preparing to chop the head off someone in accounting at all, but if she's in a meeting with your supervisor, you know there's a 1 in 12 chance that it's your head being chopped off. So, I do what any responsible employee should do .... Clear my temp internet files and history. Delete all personal e-mails and empty deleted items folder. Move all personal items from the M drive to a disc that's kept in my purse. At our company, when you're brought in to that meeting, you're escorted back to your office to get your purse, where you leave your key card and head, and are asked to leave the building. It would make sense that those that dread performance reviews at work are those that are shitty at their jobs and know it. Or maybe in this economy, they are great employees who are very good at what they do, they just happen to work for a struggling company. Regardless, I always wonder why people are surprised when they are let go. As uncomfortable as house cleaning is at my company, in the back of my mind, I know I am safe. And this is where my secret crush on performance reviews comes in. I take them as an opportunity to blow smoke up my own ass. Not ass kiss. Don't get the two confused. I'm confident enough to know I don't kiss-ass, and NO, doing under the table shooters with the boss at company functions is NOT ass-kissing. Grab the bosses boss and pour him a double .... well that's just networking. I get along well with everyone I've ever worked with. Not saying I like everyone and everyone likes me, it's just good business skills to know how to not like someone in the office properly. I take full responsibility for mistakes that I make and figure out ways to fix them. I don't ask too many questions unless I've scoured the company for the answers on my own and I take chances. I am getting further education and taking tomorrow morning off work because I plan on drinking at the Tom Petty concert and will probably be out late. I was honest about that fact in my review and it was well received. Honesty IS the best policy. And everybody knows you're useless if you come into work hung-over. That makes me efficient and companies like efficient people. All joking aside, I'm blogging this today just to state the facts (and because I am on lunch and I'm bored) .... I love my job and I love the company that I work for. It's not perfect, but I take the imperfections that directly affect me and turn them into projects. I graduated from high school, though never went to college, and am extremely proud of how far I've come in my industry after starting out as a receptionist who'd never used a computer. Call me a sinner if you want ... I never really understood how Pride could be a sin anyway, but whatever .... I ended my performance review talking about parenting and crappy weather we can see heading in from our 40th floor view. It was, as always, a good review. I almost feel like buying my supervisor a coffee when I head out for lunch ... but that would be kiss-ass. I'll just wait for our annual Stampede party and feed her shooters.

I like to drink, really, I do

I remember running late into a meeting roughly four years ago. I had been out for lunch with a group of co-workers where I managed to drink 3 pints of beer with my pizza. I was nervous to go back in the building at all, let alone try to manage sitting through the meeting with my department. The accountants. I went back n forth about what do while I finished my smoke outside, then got myself together and headed into the meeting. While everyone was casually talking, I sat at the farthest end of the table I could. A few Hellos, but that was it. I was functioning and I was OK. A few minutes later, another lady came in and carefully chose the seat next to me. Then the meeting began. I didn't know the lady beside me very well, but she had a familiar smell to her. She smelled like me. She smelled like beer. I caught her eye, she had the same 3-pint grin on her face that I had. We became fast friends after that day. My bcwf. We've had many nights and days of utter-debauchery since. Some bad, some great, and everything in between! A good chunk of my favorite young adult memories have been with her and a few other co-workers. Going in to work after liquid lunches was nothing, piece of cake. A few smoke breaks, a few cups of coffee, a few good laughs, and the buzz was gone in time to leave work and collect the kids from daycare. Sometimes, we'd start right after work. I'd scramble for someone to pick my kid up and keep her for a few hours, and if that failed, I've been known to pick her up from daycare in a cab. Hell, even more recently, I picked her up with Keys Please, a drivers alternative company that gets you and your car home after tipping back too many to get behind the wheel. Hey, at least I'm responsible. Sydnerella was confused at the strange person driving my car, confused when I handed them my credit card, and then really confused as to why I was smiling with a gatorade, a bag of chips, and a pointsetta in my arms. Those nights, I can still manage. On rare occassion. And I'm glad. Don't let this blog make you think I'm a drunkard - If you don't think it already. I like to drink. I socially drink a few times a month, if that. But that's as far is goes. And my kid has never seen me drunk drunk. Tipsy? Absolutely. But I can't come in to work hungover anymore. Most certainly can't come in still drunk from the night before. And I can't drink at lunch. Not even one beer. I don't like the feeling. The fuzzy headedness. The fatigue. I was approached today at our company tailgate party, football season is starting, to stay a little longer and have another drink. Against my better judgement, I already had a drink and wasn't interested in having another. The approachee is new to the company and had been invited to stay behind. I encouraged the new young girl to stay, but said I was going back to the office to get some work done, with a clear head. She followed me instead. We laughed as I told her stories of my drunken fun past on the walk back to the office and I saw myself in her. My young self. And then I saw myself in others I've met through work. The older women in the office. The women whose party days are long gone. The straight women. There was nothing straight about where I came from. Sheer alcoholism, it runs in my blood. Some nights more than others. But I'm not a drunk and I do say No. Somewhere between then and now, I think I've lost my edge.

bad car luck? or a rip-off mechanic in my past life?

Well, I've been a bad blogger lately, haven't blogged enough or something because I lost a follower, so I better get something blogged for True Store Tuesday since I haven't been able to come up with anything to write about for awhile. So here's the story of my life as a driver. Click on the button here to read more stories or to play along.

I wonder if I'm so nonchalant about all this because I'm sitting on the verge of a mental breakdown (like I'm in the eye of the storm) where I may leave my car in the middle of the Deerfoot and run down the line of backed up traffic over the Ogden bridge with my club smashing the tail lights out of every car I pass .... What? Like you've never thought of doing that ....

It was the summer of 1997 when I got my drivers license. Sydnerella was just a few months old. I had a Canada Savings Bond to cash in a few months before that, but because I was raised in a family with no money, I had no clue what a few thousand dollars would have done at that stage of my life. And nobody to give me suggestions. Or good suggestions anyway. I decided that a $250 1982 white Chrysler LeBaron was good enough for me. And my brand new baby girl. It had a caved in driver side door and a hole in the passenger floor. Which was actually pretty handy for those times the car wouldn't move and the passenger could just put their foot through the hole and help it along. My Dad sold me the car. My Dad, who my mom left with a big house, a motor home, a few Cadillacs, the autobody shop, and all the money. Yes, you heard that right ... not only did he feel this car was safe or decent enough for his daughter and grandbaby, he took $250 from me for it ... (give you a better idea of why I drink and say FUCK so much? ....)

Thankfully, the carburetor went on the car before Sydnerella's first Christmas so I didn't have to endure it through the remainder of her first winter. I replaced that hunk o junk with a 1989 Ford Tempo. The odometer read 899,000km. It lasted 6 months ... didn't seem to like it when I took it to the mountains in Kanaskis without putting oil in it! My bad, I get that ....

So I had the two said cars parked behind my moms house as she cursed me, my dad, all men, et cetera ... and I traded them in for a 1980-ish Mercury Grand Marquis ... and grand it was .... not in a good way I can assure you, see ...

I named him THE BEAST. I was 19 years old. The first sign that The Beast wasn't any better than my first two was when it stalled in the middle lane of the Deerfoot in morning rush hour traffic and semi's were flying by ... my 1 year old was strapped in the back. I took a ride with a stranger after he pushed The Beast on to the side of the Deerfoot, but at that point, he was the safer bet than sitting in the car waiting for a tow-truck. A when I say Deerfoot, I mean Calgary's version of 405 in LA. And I didn't own a cell phone back then ... poor as dirt remember. I put the few dollars into giving the The Beast a new cyllenoid and it ran pretty good. Until December 23, 1998. I had loaded the car up with our Christmas stuff and a weeks worth of clothes to go spend the holidays at my Moms. Just as I was pulling away from the house ... the fucking transmission went. There I was, doing the equivalent to 18 miles per hour the rest of the way from the daycare. I booted it to and from work on the busses and trains with my toddler every day for the next 18 months. One particularly memorable bus ride home, strangers went scrambling through their grocery bags offering cookies, candy, snacks, whatever because I forgot to grab change that morning and couldn't buy Sydnerella the twenty-five cent sucker she got every damn day at the train station for the ride home just so I could ride in peace and she WANTED A SUCKER DAMMIT (picture a red-faced three old with crazy curly hair screaming bloody murder while I sat there close to tears because my day started 12 hours prior and there was no end in sight) ... And another memorable ride was when she spit at me. Oh and yet another when she stuck her finger up my nose and made it bleed .... Did I ever mention that I have never been in therapy?? As rough as those 18 months were without a vehicle, there was some good to them ... like not dealing with piece of shit car crap.

In May 2000, I bought a 10 year old Hyundai Sonata from a real car dealership. I paid a few thousand dollars cash and was happy with my nice looking Sonata. I felt like a high roller. In December 2000 and just past the warranty date, it was in the shop with transmission problems and that's where it stayed until after Christmas and until I could afford the $1300 bill. I put around $5000 more into the car over the next few years (mostly in transmission fluid) and finally ....

..... finally, in 2004, I bought the newest vehicle I have ever owned. A 2000 ruby-red Saturn SL2. Air conditioning, remote start, CD player, very low mileage, and uber-extreme maximum bumper to bumper out the ass extended warranty (that ended up covering the cost of a $700 repair on the Saturn before Christmas 2004). Take that car repair mo-fos! 

I loved Ruby .... see Ruby ... not my Ruby, but still what my Ruby looked like ...

I paid Ruby off in 2006 and in October 2007, she was laid to rest. Written off by a bitch in a brand new Grand Prix. And my brother-in-laws hitch ... But he's family, he was forgiven. I will never forgive the bitch in the Grand Prix. Neither will Sydnerella. She was a little excited at the time to see the inside of an ambulance after she realized she had not gone through the windshield, not so excited to see the girly teen magazine she was reading when we were hit in a pool of her slurpee on the floor of poor crippled Ruby.

Enter the Civic. A 2000 two door coupe that everyone told me would run forever. Best car on the road. A quick wheel n deal with the slimy car salesman to get rid of the cheap tint and big fat tail pipe and the Civic was mine. Until, of course, March 2008 when some little punk fuckers decided to take my Civic from the parking lot behind my office for a joyride. The Civic was on the loose. My insurance company paid for the rental of a brand-pimpin-new PT Cruiser, and me & Sydnerella were stylin .... until, of course, a back window was smashed out and my new CDs and sunglasses stolen. I only wish I was making some of this up just for an excuse to blog. Then we got to kick it high class in a brand new Mazda 6. I loved that Mazda 6 ... that sweet sweet Mazda 6. I loved it about as much as some other punk and when they tried to steal it, leaving the drivers side door caved in from the attempt, I was ready to check myself into the psych ward. Two months after the Civic was stolen, I got him back with an even better stereo and bumper than before. It still has the stereo, but in following with tradition, it's bumper was lost to a snow bank in December 2009. The transmission is now going in a most embarrassing fashion. Sometimes, I get up to speed on the highways, sometimes I don't. It's too small. Doesn't have enough doors. And is going to fail me whether I fix the damn transmission or not. Because that's how I roll. But he's paid for. I don't want to have to put him down, but I have to. I've been trying for two damn months to find the balance between a great car and an affordable monthly bill. And I did find one a few weeks ago. A 2007 Saturn ION with low mileage and great options. Mint condition. I have a car crush on Saturns ok ... I talked them down a great chunk, put the deposit down two Fridays ago, applied for the financing, and requested the Carproof report .... you know, the report that tells you the car you love has been in three accidents and will probably have frame damage. That report. That blasted fucking report. Blasted fucking car ..... Because the dealership already had my deposit and my approved financing, I decided to test drive the 2005 dark red Pontiac G6 on their lot. And I fell in love. Hard. With Ruby Two.

I had to have her. I told them to throw some numbers together, give me a call, and I'd come pick her up. Well .... the numbers they threw together were too high for a 5 year old car, even though she had no previous accidents, was very well maintained, and had everything I wanted in a car, I had to walk away. Actually ... my plan was to pretend to walk away, then hesitantly accept when they called me back to tell me they'd lower the price just for moi. I received no such call .... just an e-mail from the sales guy telling me his sob story about how he works on commission, wont make a penny if he gets me the car at a lower cost, blah blah fucking blah. Go back to school then MORON!  He tries one more time to get me to pay $16,200 over the course of five years for an already six year old car ... tells me that I wont find a car in such good condition with such low mileage for the price I want ... yeah, you think so do ya? It might take awhile, I may end up stranded on the way to soccer with a car full of teenagers, but I'll find the car I want for the payments I want. Period. No used car salesman with rotten teeth or a bad english accent or a smoking hot body or one that makes racially unacceptable comments or asks how easy it is to meet men in oil and gas is going to get me down .... aint nothing gonna break my stride .... oh no, I've got to keep on moving .... Too far? Sorry about that ... that would have officially mortified most people who know and love me.

So there it is, my car story.