Hey Now.

Ha...yeah, so. Last night.

Where do I start?

So the old man came back as I mentioned, but I dealt rather well with it. I headed home about 9:30 leaving quite a bit undone, but figuring I'd get in early in the A.M. and take care of it. This was not to be. I read some B.P.R.D. comics to unwind for a bit, cleaned up and went out for a drink by myself.

Three things you need to know. First...I never really go out for a drink alone. If I'm by myself I either go somewhere I might run into people I know, or I go to a go-go bar where I may be familiar with a few of the girls. I know, I'm a schmuck, but bear with me here. Second...I've stopped hanging out in strip clubs and go-go bars altogether lately, except when I know a certain girl is working. I may stop in and say hello to her. Not for any specific reason except that when I've got nothing going on and need to relax she's sort of fun to talk to. Seriously. I'm the worst straight man in the known universe. Third...as I pulled into the bar last night my "low gas" light went on. Remember that. It will be important later.

I was in the bar for maybe an hour. I was exhausted, but feeling pretty good when I left. She teased me on my way out about whether I was going to sleep in my office again tonight or if I'd actually go home. I decided to check in at the yard and see if the dog had escaped again, and then head home. When I got to the yard at around 1 A.M. everything was quiet. Everything was as it should be.

So I'm driving home when I hit the hill on the Rea Ave. Extension. I'm halfway up when suddenly the car sputters...and dies. Fuck.

I can't figure out how I ran out of gas so quick, but I figure between running the AC and the gas sloshing back in the tank on the steep hill that there's just nothing getting to the engine. I decide that I'm going to roll the Hummer backwards down the hill till I get to the gas station at the bottom...over half a mile away.

Not one of my more brilliant ideas granted, but there's no way to turn this thing around and the back-up camera is still working, so I figure I'm good. The gas station is closed, but I can leave my car there until morning without a problem. I make it, I don't know, maybe 50 feet before I see headlights coming up the hill. I stop and pop my four ways on, the other cars puts his lights on...all of them...particularly the red and blue flashing ones. Yeah. Fuck me.

So the officer pulls up next to me and goes, "Car trouble?" To which I want to reply, "Nah, I just always decide to roll down a steep hill backwards at about two in the morning." but considering the circumstances actually reply "No sir. I think I'm out of gas actually." When he stops laughing he offers to call a tow truck, I call the guys I use instead and clearly explain to the girl that I'm driving a hummer, and am out of gas. When she stops laughing she says she'll send someone right out. I've rolled the car off to the side of the road, but the cop is concerned that on the hill in the dark it still might cause an accident so he stays with me his lights flashing all along. I apologize for wasting his time about a hundred times, but he seems like a nice kid and doesn't bust my chops. Suddenly I think, "Thank God I didn't run out of gas in the middle of Paterson." Because that would have really sucked, I say this out loud. The cop and I both laugh, he makes a wise crack, we both laugh again. As we're laughing I think, "Holy shit. Thank God I didn't run out of gas in the parking lot of the go-go bar."

Now I'm laughing really loud and the cop must be thinking "It wasn't that funny."

The tow truck shows up. It's too small to tow my truck, I ask if he brought gas like I asked. He says they didn't tell him. The cop and the tow truck driver give me a push and we roll the car to a safer spot, the two truck driver drives me to the other side of town and a 24 hour gas station. we get two gallons of gas, which may or may not be enough to start my behemoth vehicle, and head back to my truck. Only problem? The spout on the gas can is busted. We can't pour the gas right. We (and by we I mean the tow truck guy) finally manage to rig a spout using pieces of cardboard and magazine and get maybe half the gas can actually into the tank and the rest onto the truck itself. I shoot back to the 24 hour gas station, fill up, and buy a few bottles of water to clean the gas off my truck. The station attendant is laughing at me having realized that I was the guy who just showed up in a tow truck.

So over the course of a few hours I'd been laughed at by go-go dancers, police offers, tow truck drivers, and gas station attendants. You can imagine I was feeling pretty good about myself right about then. It was past 2:30 A.M. so I decided to swing by the office and check on the dog again since I was only a few blocks away. Sure enough there he was running down the street towards the junkyard. But this time we were able to see where he had escaped through and will hopefully be able to block it up.

I got home, crashed for a few hours, came back to work. Things were going smashingly, note the written sarcasm. I headed over to Dunkin' Donuts for my daily smile and large hot chocolate and began to feel much much better about the way the world was going.

So...what's next?