mandalay

weekend full of the mondays

What a morning. Despite the fact that I didn't sleep enough last night, I got up, got ready and drove to the office at 7 a.m. That twenty minutes made a huge difference. The sun wasn't right in my eyes, the traffic was fine, the morning was cold and I drove down 2222 with the windows down listening to Minus the Bear. For the first time, I sat down at my desk before 7:30. Now I'm eating a wonderful leftover fruit salad with kiwi, mango, strawberry and banana.

So I should probably fill you in on my weekend. Friday I went with my work friends to see Spiderman 2 and watched it from the front row slumped in my chair, head craned and moving from side to side so that I could see the whole screen. I had an awesome glass of sangria and pizza (we were at the Drafthouse). Afterward, I declined to go out because I had to practice before my voice lesson the next morning and that's not so fun to do hung-over. Just as I got home, my friend Dave called me. At this point, I will set forth new names for the two Daves I'm speaking about. This Dave, I will refer to as TDRB. Other Dave (who I will at least say first requested to be referred to as Sexy Dave) is Chopper Dave. So TDRB had driven to New Braunfels to retrieve his keys which he had lost there last weekend and had left him locked out of his apartment. Here's the saga:

On his way to New Braunfels, he decided to take a scenic route from Canyon Lake, which involved driving down Purgatory Road. His tire blew out on Purgatory. He managed to get the spare on (not having had to do this before) and decided that what he really needed was some beer, so he drove to a convenience store at 11:55 where the lady said they stopped selling alcohol at midnight and she'd already closed the register anyway so she wouldn't sell him any and told him all the other stores had probably done the same thing. So he drove home. He soon decided to leave his house, and walked outside, closing the door behind him and realized that he'd left his house key inside. He drove to his friend's house to use the phone and phone book to call a locksmith. Several of the 24-hour locksmiths he called sleepily said they no longer offered round-the-clock services. He finally found one and was leaving to go home, only to find that his spare tire had gone flat.

When TDRB called me, he was sitting outside his house waiting for the locksmith. I offered my car and services for the next day if he needed help getting back and forth in New Braunfels. The next morning, he called me at 9:30 and took me up on my offer, so I left for NB after my voice lesson. We took the wheel and a different tire to a tire place and left them to it. We hadn't eaten all day so we found a little burger place and right after we sat down, it started to pour rain. It was that kind of day. At the tire place, they tried to put another tire on the wheel with much difficulty, because the wheel was messed up and the tire wouldn't seal. In fact, the guy said he could probably make it back to Austin, but he wasn't going to charge him for the work because it wasn't in real great shape. When we put it on the car, you could see the sealant oozing out in a place where it wasn't flush.

Anyway, to make a long story short, TDRB decided to stay in New Braunfels and finish writing his concert reviews (which were late) for Rank and Revue. We were supposed to be going to the premiere of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle in Austin, but he couldn't do it. So I drove back and went with Ashley, Logan and Chopper Dave to the premiere. What fun! We all had lawn chairs and Lone Stars and watched the movie on this huge inflated screen. Ashley was already tipsy and she kept hitting on me and offering me bites of her sliders (from behind me by reaching in front of me and holding out the burger). After the premiere, we headed over to Opal's and hung out, had drinks and shots of Grand Marnier (per Ashley's request), had some very untoward conversation but a good time was had by all.

The next morning, TDRB called me and had lost the air in his tire and pulled into the first parking lot available, which happened to be at a cremation and funeral services business in a very depressing strip mall on far South Congress. We tried to figure out what to do, couldn't find any open tire places who had Volvo tires or even extra spares or a wheel. Nothing was open. Except the junkyard. When someone at Firestone finally suggested we try a junkyard, we found one and trekked around the yard trying to locate a similar Volvo tire. It was sweltering outside and, yet again, neither of us had eaten all day and were starving. We finally found a tire but TDRB didn't want to get it without being sure it would work, so we went and removed the spare and brought it back to see if the bolt pattern matched up. It did, so a guy got the tire off, and TDRB paid his $55 and we went back to the car. It fit. We were very excited, especially TDRB because he didn't have to get a rental car now. So we decided to head to Kerbey Lane South for food and got ready to leave and his car wouldn't move. The brakes had locked. Apparently the tire wasn't right. We then went to a rental place and TDRB got a car and we headed over to Kerbey. I spent the rest of the day recovering from the heat and trying to ignore my sunburn. Neither TDRB or I made it to the concert we were supposed to be covering for Rank and Revue. I'll end now before this post reaches real epic proportions.

posted by amanda @ 10:14 AM