Holiday Fiasco!

It is somewhat ironic that less than a week after my decision to start a blog about my life, my life presents me with a tragically hilarious experience to share. :)
     You see, during the course of the day I had laid out what I thought were some pretty awesome plans for the evening. I was going to run to the store and grab a few last minute Christmas gifts, swing home for food, and then run off to celebrate the holidays with a few of my favorite friends. What ended up happening was quite different.
     Work was slow and as soon as it was six, we were out the door. I had noticed earlier in the day that one of my tires was getting pretty low, so I thought it would be a good idea to fill it up before heading out to my evening endeavors. I quickly drove to the gas station to fill it up.
     Before I go any further, it is important to know that other than having a tire that leaks, my little car has a long list of. . . well. . . struggles. One of these struggles is that the drivers side door does not work from the outside. This means that whenever I get into the car I have to open the back door and awkwardly contort my body so that I can reach through and pull the inside handle of the front door to get it open. This has been a issue for months, and it has become so routine to open my car this way that sometimes I forget that I do it. Because of this, it has gotten to the point where it hasn't really been a problem, until tonight! Back to story:
      Because I was in a hurry I decided that I would just leave my car running and jump out and fill up my tire. In my haste I became careless and let the door close. It didn't close all the way, but just enough to cause it to latch, and once it latched, game over. I finished filling my tire (happily humming Christmas tunes the whole time, I might add) and returned to the drivers door. Much to my horror I discovered that although the door was unlocked, the rest were still locked, and I was most assuredly locked out of my car.
     At this point, my problem was nothing more than a minor set back. I figured that all I would have to do is get one of my parents to bring me my spare key and then I could use the clicker to get the rest of the doors unlocked. I wasn't far from home, so I didn't think it would be too much of a hassle, and although I knew it was a pain for my parents, I figured the whole ordeal would be over in less than thirty minutes. I called my mom, and she said she would be on the road as soon as she could. Because I had not been planning on spending any large amounts of time out in the mid twenty degree temperatures all I had on was a jacket.  
To keep myself warm I wandered into the gas station to wait for mom.
     After pacing around the small station and strolling all the isles at least twice, I realized that I was going to have to slow down, or I was going to cover the entire store six or seven times before I was done. I slowed down, but then I started thinking about how silly/suspicious I must look just aimlessly wandering around the tiny place, especially since I wasn’t going to buy anything. My feelings of awkwardness got the best of me, and I decided to “bag it” and wait out by my car. “afterall,” I figured “mom will be here any second so it wont be too bad.” I got back to my car and waited for a few minutes. I began to think it was taking an exceptionally long time so I reached in my pocket for my phone and noticed I had missed a few calls from mom. I quickly called her back only to discover that she was calling from home. She told me that she didn’t have any keys to the truck so I would have to wait for my dad to get home so he could come help me. She told me to go into the station to keep warm, and that she would call dad and send him as soon as she could. I muttered angrily to myself as I hung up the phone, and made my way back to the front of the station.
     I smiled sheepishly at the workers as I walked in through the doors, and then re-assumed my awkward pacing. After pacing the store a couple times again, I fixated on the hot chocolate machine. I had had enough of wandering the station and getting the stares from the employees, so I decided that if I just got some hot chocolate I could survive long enough in the cold to wait for dad. “afterall,” I again thought to myself “he’ll be here before long, and my car will be plenty warm after idling for a good thirty minutes. So as soon as it is open I can get warm again.” So, I bought my cup of hot coco and a couple doughnuts, and made my way outside to wait.
     After my doughnuts and coco were gone, and what seemed like an eternity in the cold, my dad finally drove up with my spare key. I quickly took it, but much to my despair I discovered that it wasn’t working. My first thought was that the batteries were dead, so I hopped into dad’s car and we took off to Walgreen’s to get some new batteries. Fifteen minutes later we were back to my car with fresh batteries but the clicker still would not work. I tried several other things as well. We used the key to get the trunk open to see if there was a way into to the car through the trunk, FAIL. I used the key to try the VW trick that if you hold the key in the door in the unlock position for a few seconds it will roll down the windows (I know this because I have done it before, and it works IF the keys are not in the ignition.) We flipped the batteries a couple times, tried the trunk again, and tried the trick again. Still no success. By then, my fingers were starting to get numb, I was starting to get very angry, and I was going into what I will call Neanderthal man phase. In short, my problem solving brain was shutting down, and I became fixated on one goal; get into the car as soon as possible!
     This is when the thought came to me that I should break the window so I could open the door. I shared this thought with dad (whom, unfortunately was also slipping into Neanderthal phase) and he agreed that it would be the next best option. I have to admit that there was something in me that was excited about the idea that I could break the car window. This car has caused me a fair amount of stress and trouble over the past few months, and I found it somewhat appealing that I had a legitimate reason to inflict harm on it. It seemed like a Delicious opportunity for revenge on the blasted thing, and it was a real excuse to do what I had longed to do so many times. ( You may call me crazy, but don’t tell me that you have never felt like some inanimate object in your life was out to get you and all you wanted to do was punish it.) With all of these elements combined, I shut out any other option for solving my problem and began the effort to break my window.
     In the trunk of my car I had a hiking staff, and I decided to use it to break the window. I was worried that upon breaking the glass there would be a possibility of injury, and I figured if I used the staff I could stay far enough away from the window to avoid such injury. I took the staff, and started pounding. I pounded a few times, and then out of nowhere (I swear I don’t know where he came from) this transient man come bounding up to me. Asking me (in language that I will not use here) why I was trying to break the window. I explained to him the situation, and that this was indeed my own car. He started to try to reason with me that I could find another way, but I was hellbent on completing this task (looking back now I see that I should have listened to this man. . . if only I would have listened). After stubbornly justifying myself to him, he shrugged and walked away and I continued pounding with my staff. This probably would have worked eventually, except that dad was not convinced that my staff was strong enough to break the window. He suggested that I grab a large rock from the landscaped riverbed a few yards away, and use that instead. I was skeptical, but trusting. Dun dun dun. I looked at him questioningly, but he seemed sure so I started pounding.
     It only took two, maybe three hits with the large rock and the window was broken. I pulled my hand out with the rock, only to discover that I had several little tiny shards of glass sticking out of my hand, and one deep looking gash. At that moment, I decided that it was time to let go of any evening plans, and accept that this fiasco was my evening. As I showed my hand to dad, I could see that he was immediately remorseful. He said something about the cut being bad enough to warrant an ER trip, and I agreed. Luckily my hand was so cold that I couldn’t feel a thing, and it wasn’t bleeding too bad yet. Without touching my hand, I finagled my doors opened, and then agreed to meet dad at home, where we would then make our way to the hospital. 
    I got into my car (Which was very warm, by the way) and started to drive home. Naturally, the two things that I was most concerned about at that point were  #1) Making sure that I didn’t get blood on my clothes, and #2) calling my friends to let them know I wouldn’t make it. So picture me, this idiot driving a stick shift with my phone wedged between my shoulder and my ear, shifting with my right hand, and steering with my left elbow. All the while focusing precariously on keeping the blood from getting on my pants or jacket. It’s a miracle I made it home without getting in a wreck!
     But I did make it home, and after cleaning off my wounds, I decided it would be best to go get some stitches. So dad took me to the hospital where I had the pleasure of explaining my sorry/embarrassing story to every hospital staff member that I came in contact with, because of course they all wanted to know. The fellow who did my x-ray could sense my embarrassment, and was kind enough to list off several injuries that he had seen that were caused by things much dumber than mine. I was comforted by his kindness because misery truly does love company. After my umpteenth time explaining how I got this nice slice in my hand, I decided that I was just going to have to get over it and chalk this whole thing up to a learning experience. Next time, I will just call the police and let them figure it out! Lesson learned.
     On the plus side, I really did have an enjoyable time with dad tonight. We had some good laughs, and some great conversation. I’m not hurt that bad, and everything else will work out. So if it takes an event like this to get me to stop being so self-centered and spend some time with dad, well then I’ll take it.

Merry Christmas!