This is not the way to have a good day

Vehicles I own:  3
Vehicles currently fully operational: 0

I have two motorcycles and a car.  The car is my everyday vehicle right now, partially because my arms and shoulders are pretty fucked up and I'm not supposed to be riding.  One of the bikes has been sitting in the garage for a couple of months being neglected (see also shoulders)-- its battery is dead.  Another one, my old-enough-to-vote ratbike, has been on loan to my sweetie for several months.  He returned it a couple of days ago. 

The ratbike... well, let's just say that it's seen better days, and it's on really good terms with my mechanic.  I rode it to work yesterday and stopped by the shop on my way in, just to say hi.  One of them looked out at it suspiciously.  "Is that here because it needs to be worked on?"

"Get real.  Have you ever seen this bike come in and leave the shop under its own power?"

"Umm, no.  Now that I think about it, I don't think I have."

I laughed.  "There's a first time for everything, I guess."  He looked like he'd just had his sentence commuted.  "You should listen to it when I leave, though, and tell me what the weird noise is when I start it."  He did.  It's the starter clutch.   "Ride it until it dies. That could be tomorrow or three years from now."

The commute wasn't too bad, but my shoulders were not happy with the whole operation.

AprilFlat

This morning I walked out the front door to get in my car, and was greeted by the sight of my car with three fully-inflated tires.  That's almost enough to drive on!  I swore loudly and colorfully, then headed for the trunk to start changing the tire.

"Oh, fuck it.  I'll take the bike."  I went upstairs, grabbed my gear, hopped on the bike, and headed for work.

I left the office around 9 p.m. and headed for the bike.  It was a little bit cranky about starting, but no problem... it does that.  I can usually start it on the third try, occasionally the fourth.  Tonight, no dice.  I spent a good five minutes trying to start the bloody thing before the battery started to give out, so I pushed it into the alley behind my office, locked it up, and went back upstairs to dump my gear.  Some homeless guy is probably doing unspeakable things to it even as I write this, but I don't really care.  Maybe he'll get it started.

At this point I was in a bloody rotten mood, but I calmed for a bit, ranted at the universe, and then headed out.  I was >< this close to taking a cab home from the city, but the cab driver I flagged down wouldn't do it so I just had him take me to BART.  His unwillingness probably saved me $25.

Once I got home, I very carefully limped the car into the garage, emptied all the crap out of the trunk, and then set to work changing a tire.  Fuck, fuck fuck fuck.  I have locking lug nuts on the wheels, and I can't find a key for them anywhere.  Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

(Amusing.  The Firefox spellchecker recognizes fuck, but not fuckity or spellchecker.)

I tossed crap back into the trunk, went upstairs, ranted a bit about the lug nuts, then thought to myself, "Hey, isn't there a socket wrench sort of thing that's been in the center console of the car since you bought it three years ago?"  I put my clothes back on and went downstairs, and discovered that I did in fact have what I needed.

I changed the tire without breaking a single fingernail, and found a really small piece of metal buried in the tread of the tire.  I made colorfully disparaging comments at it.

So at this point I have a motorcycle with a dead battery in the garage, a car with a temporary spare in the garage, and a bike that won't start and has a half-dead battery in the city.  I am not pleased with the current state of my vehicular universe.

On the plus side, we had a department offsite this afternoon to see the movie 21.  I found it bloody hilarious in places where it wasn't intended to be funny, like when they started talking about the Monty Hall problem, or when lots of the scenes too place at the Red Rock.  The real reason it was funny, though, is that the real Mickey Rosa is a friend of mine, and I kept trying to imagine him doing the things that Kevin Spacey did.