Feeling: grumpy
Listening to: Frou Frou - Let Go
Reading/Watching: ...

Tuesday, I woke early to get Luna's oil changed, so that Nimsay and I could go to the grocery store afterward before it became too warm and muggy.

I drove to Wal-Mart, because it's the only place where I can stand to wait for an hour while they mess with my car, without going insane from boredom. I dropped Luna off, and wandered the aisles of Low-Price Mecca, looking at the knock-off versions of fashionable clothing lines, riffling through the bin of $5 DVDs, gazing longingly at the million types and colors of yarn and their accompanying knitting projects, knowing that if I keep buying yarn I will spend all my time knitting instead of working, and all my money on yarn instead of rent and food.

Besides, I still have the wire and beads to make bracelets, fulfilling my need for crafty projects.

An hour passes, and I go to pick up my car, except they do not hand me back the key. Because the key is in the ignition. Because the car is still in the service lane. Because they can't get it to start.

They check the battery: battery's fine. They check the battery connectors, and they're corroded. They charge me $3 and change the connectors. Nothing. Luna hates me. She is pissed that I deserted her for three weeks while I went gallivanting with my new fling Nuitari (mon coeur's Chrysler) all the way to California. She does not care that I protested that she's an elderly girl and shouldn't drive 2,000 miles in three days, does not care that her tires are worn and close to bald and that she has a tendency to overheat, and that the New Mexico desert in May is not the best place for her. No. I turned my back on her for a younger, classier car, and she is on strike.

They finally put Luna on a lift and look at her underbelly. They tap on the starter, which knocks something loose that was jammed, and she reluctantly starts, because she can't stand being tickled.

I drive her straight to my favorite repair place, because the Wal-Mart guys say she might not re-start if I turn her off again.

En route to the garage, I call Nimsay and tell her that grocery shopping may not be in the stars for today. She is sympathetic, offers to look up bus routes so that I can get home from the repair place. We are both triumphant when I see a bus stop on my way to the garage, and it has a return bus that goes all the way to our street.

I arrive at the garage, again describing the problem in girly terms like "vrooming noise" and "lifty-uppy-thingy", write a very detailed description on the forms they hand me. Then I hand over her keys, empty out my CDs from the front seat, and start walking toward the corner where the bus stop is.

The bus passes me on the road, and my heart sinks, but it gets stopped at the left turn light. I begin running (an activity that Katie does not enjoy, thankyouverymuch), all the way across the crosswalk (the drivers goggled at me; usually Schoolville pedestrians move at a mosey), a block down from the corner toward the bus stop.

The bus gets a green light, and begins moving. As it rounds the corner, I am twenty or thirty feet from the bus stop. I scream and wave my arms, runningrunningrunning, and it roars right past me, not so much as slowing down as it passes the bus stop.

I even had exact change. Bastards.

By this point, I am tired and sweaty, I have not yet showered all day (I was expecting a twenty-minute stop at Wal-Mart, nothing more), it is nearly noon, over ninety degrees, and I am at least three miles from home, carrying my purse and my book of 200 CDs.

Granted, I used to walk 2 miles home from school for fun in highschool, but at this point I was crabby and frustrated, calling Nimsay on the verge of tears, letting loose the F-bomb and walking as fast as I could (because moving sluggishly would only make the walk last longer). She tried to comfort me, but I was in the full-on throes of a tantrum, so in the end I apologized for being bitchy, hung up, and kept walking.

Fifty minutes later, I arrived home, a little sunburned, a lot grumpy, and smelling like a hairy marathon runner. A long cold shower helped, as did spending the next few hours pouting, and $215 and a new starter later, I recovered my Luna and took her home.

I still get oddly frustrated when I turn the key in the ignition and hear her cheerfully rumble to life. I should probably not tell her that I'm planning on selling her and taking care of Nuitari once mon coeur leaves for Korea. But the fun walk on Tuesday definitely reconciled me to the idea just a little bit more.

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