Oh Monday

Week 2 of work at Dolores Mission has gotten off to kind of a rocky start. The starter on Dolores (the car that my community was given to use) broke over the weekend, and I spent ALL of Monday trying to get it fixed. The whole fiasco involved several incidences that would have driven a lesser person to insanity:

1. 8:45 a.m.: Getting the car started. A call to AAA with me pretending to be my roomie, not knowing her home address (which they requested) and waiting ½ an hour for the AAA guy to get there, just to have the stupid car start the first time he tried it.

2. 9:15 – 10:30 a.m.: The drive to the mechanic’s house. Bumper-to-bumper morning rush hour traffic, changing lanes, merging, big trucks, stopping under highway over passes and asking God to not let there be an earthquake until I was out from under them, no radio, less than ¼ tank of gas (and I couldn’t fill up because that would involve shutting off a car that had no guarantee of starting again), and completely missing the road I was supposed to turn on.

3. 10:45 a.m- 1 p.m..: The mechanic wasn’t home when I got there. Guess I should’ve called ahead. So I went for a nice 3 mile walk, found a cute cybercafé, had a delicious turkey wrap with lettuce, tomato and pesto, checked my e mail etc etc. Then my phone rang and it was the mechanic, speaking in rapid, heavily-accented English, saying something about my car being on the wrong side of the street and me getting a ticket because it was street cleaning day. I walked as fast as I could toward his house and was crossing the street when I heard “Teri!” and it was the mechanic, parked at a gas station, coming to get me. Fortunately, his wife was “guarding” the car, so I avoided yet ANOTHER traffic ticket.

4. Somewhere between 10 and 1: My tea spilled in my purse. And leaked all over everything in it, including an already ragged copy of “Angels & Demons” and my digital camera, which is now ruined. Oh yea, and it soaked through my purse and onto my skirt as I rode in the mechanic’s car to rescue Dolores from the perilous exploits of ticket-happy parking cops.

5. 1:30 p.m.: Pre-approval by the boss lady required for all car repairs. And the boss lady was impossible to get a hold of, which meant more waiting for me. Hooray.

6. 3:30 p.m.: The mechanic couldn’t fix the car until the next day = I had to take the bus home. In rush hour traffic. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal, except it was almost 2 hours of public transit time, and I went the wrong way when I got off the first bus, which meant that I had to endure double the “piropos” (cat calls) as I first walked by men waiting for their busses, and then walked by again from the other way. When I finally found the right bus stop, I was on the wrong side of the street and missed my bus and didn’t have cell service so couldn’t call the metro people to find out when the next bus would come. And I was hungry and tired and just wanted to go home.

7. 3:30-5 p.m.: Things take a turn for the better. A bus going to East LA (the 30, which wasn’t the 31 I needed…) showed up and the driver promised to take me to 1st and Gage, where I needed to be. So I hopped on, paid my $1.25 and made myself at home.

8. 5:30 p.m.: I get off on 1st and Gage, make my way to my house and go straight for the peanut butter in the cupboard to smack away the frustrations of the day. And then to the fridge for a brownie and some milk. And then back to the fridge for a spoonful of fudge frosting, straight out of the container.

And that’s when I knew it would all be okay.