Keifer's Not In This 24
3/12/2
The last 24 hours have been eventful to say the least. Let�s do this chronologically.
Around noon, I get a phone call from my friend since first grade who has been traveling the world over the last year and we talk some. I tell him to come by the house this afternoon, as he can�t have dinner with us since he�s wooing his parent�s house sitter. [Typical Matt]. They�re going to get dollar sushi at eight.
I call Aisai at work and she�s about to take off since she doesn�t feel well. The car alarm on the 626 armed while she was driving, and with a co-worker in the car also. It did this to me on Saturday.
I tell Aisai that Matt�s coming over sometime after four and she mildly panics, but I reassure her that, hey, it�s Matt. No need to clean up the clutter.
Aisai leaves work and goes to Radio Shack since she�s heard that sometimes car alarms can act funny when the battery is dying on the fob. Radio Shack Fellow takes the battery out and tests it and it�s fine so he puts it back in, backward. Aisai walks to her car and hits the button and it makes no sound. No chirp of disarmament.
Tempers rage. A small fireball forms in Aisai�s eye and she becomes inwardly furious, but, of course, doesn�t let on to anyone. Back into Radio Shack and Mr. Shack puts the battery in correctly but Aisai is in a hurry due to her rage and only allows him to put one screw back in and she carries the rest.
At 3:15, I get off work and head home. Aisai is there and she�s looking for the jeweler�s screwdrivers to put the screws back in. She can�t find them, and feels horrible, so she takes a nap. I try, mildly, to be quiet by playing Wolfenstein with the bass turned all the way down.
Approximately at this time Alec Baldwin [name changed], the man we bought the car from, faxes a four page ugly fax to Clark�s Honda bashing them about how much they�ve overcharged us and that the car was fine when he sold it. Well, he�s half right there.
Matt finishes running around and gets to our house at 5:30. I�m still trying to be quiet for sick Aisai so Matt and I toss around my 10 lb medicine ball outside and talk. After a while we go in and I give him a mini tour of the house and we played a little Gran Turismo 3 and Wipeout 3. I also showed him what Grand Theft Auto 3 was like. Spending the last year primarily in the third world, he was pleased with the technology.
I also had the preview of Star Wars: Episode II on the replaytv that he hadn�t seen. Aisai had put on a nice sweater and jeans and had come out of her slumber to socialize at this point. Zapato also came downstairs from her hiding from strangers and I played with Pado with the laser pointer.
Matt, oddly, was amazed at the power of the laser pointer. Heck, he hasn�t been gone for five years. We went outside so I could show him how little it dispersed over distance by shining it on far away houses.
Kurt, our neighbor, was taking out his garbage at that time and I introduced him to Matt. I mentioned to Matt that Kurt had built a giant mech costume for Halloween when he was laid off last year. Matt told us that when he was inbetween jobs he and two friends build a life size Jabba the Hutt. Jabba didn�t sell on ebay so they donated him to a local puppet troupe.
And then...the rat.
Yes, we�re standing there talking about how Kiddo, one of Kurt�s cats, poops in our flowerbed, when alongside our garage door runs a rat. Kurt said he didn�t think it was a legitimate rat since the tail was wrong. We got a second look by shaking the garbage can it was hiding under [one of those 90 gallon green plastic ones the city issues] and stomping around. Across the garage door it ran again, and then...into my garage.
No! I have rats. And in front of the neighbors and guests.
It probably has something to do with that 25 lb bag of bird feed in the garage. After that, Matt had to run to make his date with his parent�s house sitter.
Today, I woke up feeling horrible. I called in. Aisai had an appointment to get three fillings replaced and a new one put in her teeth. I slept till 11 a.m., which is pretty late for a person who wakes at 5:30. As I was getting in the shower, Aisai called and it was clear that she had already had the filling things done. It seems that Clark�s Honda called us. At this time, we have no idea what for. They called her three times total and left one message at her work. Normally her cell phone is the number we�ve given them. I was supposed to call them when I got to work.
I take my shower, but at one point, I reach for the soap and my left shoulder, which was bothering me last week, freaks out. It still hurts quite a lot and I can�t look up or to the right. I also can�t lift anything over my head with my left arm. I feel like a hunchback.
I get to work and call Clark�s and tell them to ignore Alec Baldwin. He reminds me that I need to get that transmission mount fixed. I let him know that the switch then played with for the sunroof is now dangling by its wires occasionally into the cabin. But for now, the alarm is the #1 thing to fix, and they can't do that one.
Did I forget anything? Oh, my glasses are very loose and I can�t find the jeweler�s screwdriver. That, and I made a mix CD for the car called �Rat Mix�.