If I don’t even mention yesterday, maybe we can pretend yesterday never even happened…?
I know it’s true that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, but it seemed like yesterday if there was going to be someone not pleased with what I do, they took yesterday to tell me about it. I’m putting out about six different fires, one of which has actually been going on for a number of weeks and is just so frustrating that it may wind up with me deciding not to ship internationally any more, including to Canada. I’m just that over it. I’m also considering not dyeing any more of a specific colorway (oddly enough, the colorway I’m using in the photo to the side here) because I’ve had such a run of bad luck with orders for it lately that I’m starting to think it’s cursed.
I was so ready to be done with my work day yesterday by mid-afternoon that I was really, really glad it was Knitting Tuesday and I went off to go to the post office and up to Wild Iris for a cider and some knitting and hopefully a lot of laughter from my peeps. About halfway between the PO and the bookstore the heavens opened up – not unexpected, after all, it is a summer afternoon in Florida. Naturally I turned my windshield wipers on, but then was confused when they didn’t react. I turned them up a notch. Nothing. I turned them on high. Nothing. WTF? I kept flipping the switch, both eyes on the road, trying to make out the lines in the road from looking out my side window because by this point the windshield was unusable. I actually wound up pulling into someone’s driveway to hop out in the rain and pull on the wipers, seeing if they were stuck or something. Nothing. They wouldn’t budge.
Long time readers will remember about three years ago, when my windshield wipers wouldn’t turn off – that was annoying, but also kind of funny (and blog worthy). This was just flat out scary. If I was stopped, I could see out the window. If I moved, the water drops smeared and I couldn’t see shit. I have never been so frightened to be behind the wheel, and I used to drive the DC beltway to and from work! At this point I was closer to Wild Iris than I was to home, so I decided to take back roads to the bookstore (not that stop signs were any easier to see through the rain than red lights were, but at least I thought if I hit anything it would be a tree and not another car.
I got to Wild Iris, emailed Tim, and then called Billy, the mechanic I’ve had for going on about 20 years. It was starting to clear up but since Billy’s has moved to about the opposite end of town, I didn’t want to drive out there and get halfway through the campus area just to have the heavens open up again… so I asked him to send me a tow truck. Bobby came out and got my car, I told him the same things I had told Billy, and he loaded up my car on the flat bed and took it off to work on today.
So at some point today I’ll get a call, and if it’s the same relay switch from a few years ago that wouldn’t let the wipers turn off, I’m looking at about $200. Which is totally worth it to, you know, NOT DIE ON THE ROAD.
I used to date a guy whose wipers didn’t work. He poured gallons and gallons of RainX on his windshield (which I actually thought of while parked in dude’s driveway, but was closer to Wild Iris than I was to a place that might sell RainX). But somehow in dating him I was never in his car when it rained. Maybe also because he was drunk most of the time and I didn’t think he should be driving. Anyway, now, having driven in the rain with no wipers, he’s a crazier motherfucker than I thought he was.
Now. I’m off to wrap soap for most of the day, and wait for Billy to call. And try not to continue to fume about yesterday.
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