Continued Car Adventures

On Sunday mornings, I go to brunch. I love this practice. I adore going to brunch. It is far and away my favorite meal. In Boston, I used to go to a different brunch place every weekend. We even had a blog. There is not as much choice here. I go to the same place every Sunday, on the strength of them being super-nice there and they have eggs Benedict on the menu. I am addicted to eggs Benedict (I can thank all the Boston brunch-ing for that). The eggs Benedict here isn't that great, but it isn't the worst and it satisfies my craving.

Anyway, brunch doesn't open until 10:30, so I spent Sunday morning on Tumblr, because, like, this is what you do with free time, right? Then I showered and got dressed and grabbed a New Yorker to read over brunch and walked out to my car...

...And it wouldn't start.

So I panicked and then I complained and then I called AAA.

AAA said it would take an hour.

They were late.

They called me to say they were lost. I explained exactly where I was located. They showed up five minutes later...and the address on the tow truck was seriously from, like, five blocks away. I live on a main street here. I have no idea why there were lost.

But they were nice once they got here, and they gave me a jump, and they told me to go around the corner to the shop there to have the battery tested. And to not shut my car off when I ran in to get someone to help me.

I've never left my car running unattended. It was a little terrifying. But I did it and no one stole my car and a guy came outside and tested my battery for me. We both stood in the cold rain while he did all of these tests, because of course the weather was miserable today. I've been writing nothing but rain in the Inceptionbabyfic and then it did nothing but rain today and when I got home this afternoon I let Arthur sprawl in the sun because *seriously.*

Then we had this conversation:

Him: It's a bad battery.
Me: So can we replace it?
Him: (long pause)
Him: (even longer pause)
Him: (even longer longer pause)
Him: Maybe?
Me: ...

I mean, what were my options if I couldn't replace the battery? Anyway, they replaced my battery. Weirdly, when they asked for my phone number to put me in the system, it was already in the system, only under another person's name. I have an out-of-state phone number, so that whole thing was weird, and now I'm worrying that my identity's been stolen (and apparently being used to buy car repair services that they have to pay for themselves so what's the point?).

At one point I eventually realized that I was the only woman in the place. Not only was I the only woman in the place, but every one of the men was dressed in camouflage. Clearly, hunting season must be upon us. And there I was in my cheerful bright pink coat in a sea of earth-colored tree print. They were all very sweet to me. I think they didn't know what to make of me. I was like a lost kitten who had wandered into their midst. At the same time, though, it was a little disconcerting, because they, like, asked if they could help me with my car. I'm in a car repair place. *They're* helping me with my car. What would there be for the other men to do? I know they meant it from a nice place, and it's true that I probably looked pretty clueless (because I *am*), but I didn't really know how to respond. I just said, "No, I'm fine, thanks," and they all smiled politely at me and went back to talking about hunting or whatever, and I looked outside at the cold rain and tried to decide if there was anything that could make me voluntarily spend a whole afternoon outside in that weather. There might be some things, but they'd mostly involve hot British actors (or Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and not killing animals.

Anyway, eventually the battery was replaced and the car--knock on wood--was working such that I could get to brunch and have a well-deserved mimosa.

Then I went home and ordered a sweater from H&M as a coping mechanism.