I HAD A TERRIBLE DAY THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS FOR ONCE
But I would have preferred that it did
Yesterday, March 13th, was a Wednesday and not a Friday, but it sure felt like someone had put all the bad juju on me anyway.
The day started badly—my cats woke me at 5 am and I couldn’t get back to sleep. It got better when I went to my 9 am eye doctor appointment and it turns out my vision hasn’t really gotten worse since my last exam. If I had a spare $150 I could get some sweet non-reflective prescription blue light glasses for all of the writing I do on screens, but since I don’t, I’ll wait.
After that, I headed to the West Hills to volunteer. I’ve recently joined The Songbirds, a small group that sings old standards to the residents of a senior living facility. It’s a beautiful experience to share that hour with them and my fellow volunteers. Once we finished, my plan was to do some grocery shopping and then head home to get online for the first time that day to do what I always do, which is to look for work all day while updating my Substack and socials.
But as they say, Man plans and God laughs. I’m an atheist, but if there was such a being, I hope they enjoyed watching my car hit a pothole the size of a moon crater on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway. It sounded like someone threw a boulder under my car.
I knew something was wrong about a minute later, so I pulled over into a parking lot and saw that I had done a really spectacular job at completely fucking up my right front tire.
Seriously, when I commit, I commit. I never half-ass anything!
Then came the insurance company mishegoss, where they dispatched a tow truck from one place that said it would be at least 2.5 hours to get to me. So I canceled that one and tried another one, same result. Then the first one called me to say they’d be there in 20 minutes, so I canceled the second one. Who called me two hours later to see if I still needed them. Yaaaay.
As I waited, I shared my plight on my socials. I hate being The Little Match Girl of Twitter, but my followers were right there to help me via Venmo—you know who you are and I have already thanked you profusely! My friends started barraging me with texts and calls with offers to help me change the tire, but I didn’t have a spare. I WILL GET ONE SOMEDAY, internet dads!
The tow truck guys who showed up were very nice, but since there were two of them and only two seats in the cab, they couldn’t give me a ride. My insurance company doesn’t have courtesy pickup and neither does the Les Schwab which was only 3 miles away.
So they drove my car on the tow truck and I WALKED THREE MILES. As I trudged, I tried to find the silver linings in my situation despite my growling stomach, full bladder, and the anxiety I felt knowing I hadn’t left enough food for my cats to cover this many hours away from home.
At least I am able-bodied and can walk, I thought.
At least it’s not raining.
At least I can fix this.
At least there are still good people in this world who are willing to help.
At least I didn’t lose my only SodaStream water bottle after I didn’t realize I had accidentally dropped it in the parking lot.
At least I will be able to go to the bathroom as soon as I get there.
At least this will be a funny story once I stop being ripshit furious about it.
I sidestepped the “You need ALL NEW TIRES!” sales pitch and got my one tire along with a free rotation of the other tires. Thankfully, my time at Les Schwab was short, less than two episodes of “Family Feud,” which was blaring on the TV in the lobby. Based on what I saw, I would KILL on that show, just saying. Plus, I was able to charge my phone on an actual car battery on a stand thanks to the world’s shortest phone charger cord.
It’s the little things, literally.
Once my car was ready, I felt like I never wanted to drive it again. I asked the guy who was ringing me up if he ever felt the same way.
“Only all the time,” he replied. “I bang my car up a lot.”
I didn’t go to the grocery store, even though there was a Trader Joe’s nearby. I wanted the straightest route home at that point. It was almost five and I had left my apartment at 8:45 to make my 9:10 eye exam.
The second I walked in the door, I gave my cats an extra big snack and filled their bowls with their usual shredded chicken even before I took off my coat because I’m a Jewish mother like that.
I know a lot of things happened in politics yesterday, but I honestly didn’t have the capacity for any of it once I was able to sit down on the couch with some food. I watched the Love Is Blind reunion show because I got super sucked into Season 6. I AM NOT MADE OF STONE OVER HERE, PEOPLE. I CAN STILL RECOGNIZE LOVE.
And I also know other things are happening today, like dumbfuck Sissy SpaceX blowing up another rocket and Chuck Schumer calling out Netanyahu from the Senate floor, but I woke up with a scratchy throat, a runny nose, and what for me is a low-grade fever because I’m a smaller-sized person who usually runs at about 96.9. I just cannot, my friends.
So today I shall cocoon with soothing beverages and the cats and catch up on Feud while keeping an eye on my book sales. I recently sent out a batch of new agent queries for The Sound of Settling, and I hope to get a real response, not one generated by AI. In the meanwhile, your support for my rock and roll love story is always appreciated in any way you can give it. I’m up to 569 copies sold! If I put 569 books in front of you, you’d be all, “Wow, Tara, that’s a lot of books!” TELL YOUR FRIENDS! And if you sign up for a paid subscription at either the founding level or the next level, you’ll get to be a part of the follow-up, Heavy Meddling!
I’ll never give up on trying to impress the Yes Person who’ll see my untapped writing goldmine potential because the April rent is looming large. But for now, I’ll be on the couch with my cats hoping the Vitamin D streaming through my windows is a sign of better things to come.
And since we still have TikTok at the moment, I’ll leave you with a tiny political snack. Please enjoy this side-by-side comparison of Dark Brandon vs the Adjudicated Rapist, which sounds like an X-Men movie that’s still in pre-production. Because it kind of is.
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
😂😂😂 I’m almost 55
If I were twenty years younger......