Being Grown Up Sucks Sometimes.

I think I'm going to skip my usual self-deprecating introduction and just get right to the point of this blog entry.

There's a leak in the ceiling of my bathroom. How long has it been there? I have no idea, I've been out of town for two weeks. It's evidently been there long enough to saturate an entire roll of toilet paper, then knock that roll of toilet paper off onto the floor, then continue to soak it until it sat in a little puddle of leaky AC unit fluid, and then gradually work its way on from there. Fortunately, it was considerate enough to finally position itself directly over my bathroom sink, so at least it's dripping into a drain. The unfortunate part of that is that my sink is not very deep and has a very flat basin. So every time it drips, it splashes nasty rust-colored mystery fluid all over my toothbrush, my overnight bag, my razor, and my hair brush. I've stuffed a rag down into the spot where it drips, and that's at least stopping most of the spatter, but now that particular wash cloth looks like someone has mistaken it for toilet paper. More than once. And then thrown it into my sink.

This particular inconvenience is just one of a list of things currently on my to-fix/ignore-indefinitely-until-I-flip-out-and-break-it list.

Topping that list (aside from the leak) is my car. I've blogged about my car many, many times in the past, so if you've read more than just a handful of these posts, it should be a familiar character. Kind of like that character on sitcoms who only shows up every once and a while, but you really wish he would kind of just not show up anymore because he's annoying and not very funny. So essentially, every character on Seinfeld. (Take that, highly successful beloved 90's sitcom.) However, this time it's not actually the car's fault. My inspection sticker has been out of date long enough that I'm fairly sure the police can smell it like a shark smells blood in the water every time I pull out of a parking lot. I've been meaning to get it inspected for a long time, but let's face it, meaning to do something is basically what you say to cover your ass when someone finally calls you on it. On Monday, however, it really was my intention to get it inspected along with a list of other errands I intended to run. So I fired up the Duralast Kevorkian and headed to campus.

The first thing on my list of errands was to pay the first installment of my tuition at the Bursar's office. What I had forgotten, however, was that this was the Monday of the first week of classes. And the school happened to accept a significantly higher number of freshmen this semester than it usually does. So every freshman and his mother (literally) were all trying to do the exact same thing I was. After cursing my terrible timing, I stood for two hours in a slow-moving line that smelled like sweat and fear, just praying that none of these biddy freshmen moms were here to raise hell over the price of tuition or anything. That way, we could all just behave like civil human beings and get on with our day. Fortunately, nobody started anything or caused any major delays, but that didn't help the fact that the line was moving slower than a dying snail in a puddle of molasses and the mouth breather behind me literally sounded like he was on a ventilator and choking on his own spittle. It was like if they'd gotten that weird stalker kid from Hey Arnold to do the breathing part of Darth Vader's voice acting. I held my tongue (and more discreetly, my nose) and made it through, paid my dues and headed upstairs to see about talking to a Financial Aid person about a student loan. I quickly learned that the massive crowd of people milling about on that floor weren't actually there to just hang out and chat. They were the waiting list. Unwilling to spend another two hours of my day listening to freshmen prattle on about who got what dorm and where they were planning to hide their toaster ovens so the RA wouldn't find them, I decided I'd take care of it later. I got the hell out of there and moved on to getting my car inspected.

Now, getting a vehicle inspected is never an exciting task. You pull into the parking lot, awkwardly talk to some guy in a jumpsuit about what he can "do ya fer," and then spend the next hour in a tiny un-air conditioned room with a group of people you could swear you saw on last week's episode of Maury. Then, in order to avoid eye contact at all costs, you get to choose between a selection of magazines full of trucks and guns, or watching Judge Judy reruns on the microwave suspended from the ceiling in the corner. After what seems like an eternity, your friend in the jumpsuit comes back in to begin a conversation that consists entirely of him pointing out things they could fix, or change, or refill, and you doing your damnedest to convince him that "No, it's fine, I really just came in to get it inspected." Then they charge you fifty bucks for the time they spent playing with your blinkers and your AC and send you on your way.

However, this time it did not go like that at all. I pulled into the parking lot, and then I sat behind a truck that was probably large enough to tow a small house and punch a new hole in the o-zone layer every time it accelerated, but was probably owned by some guy whose idea of manual labor was helping his buddy move a couch out of his double-wide. Because the entrance to the parking area was on a steep incline, half of which was currently being occupied by the diesel-powered douchemobile and the other half had me stuck halfway into the very busy road behind me, I quickly decided I was tired of playing that game and pulled into a space which was clearly not intended for parking. Then I went inside. When my jumpsuit friend arrived to ask about my car, and I told him I needed to get it inspected, he asked me if it was registered to Walker County. I told him no, it's registered to Brazoria County, and he told me that was going to be a problem. As it turns out, they need some kind of special piece of paper I need to sign before they'll inspect my car, and they happened to be out of that piece of paper. He told me they'd be getting more at the end of the month (though, until that point I was fairly sure that the 27th counted as the end of the month). Rather than ask why they didn't just print off a new stack, I just decided to cut my losses and leave.

My next stop was a bank I had never seen or been to in order to deposit a tax return check. When I had called my bank in my hometown about the situation, they directed me to a Community Somethingorother Bank on Sam Houston Avenue. So I pulled onto Sam Houston Avenue, and sure enough, there was a Community Bank right there. Unfortunately, they must have had a fairly pessimistic view on how many clients they'd actually have because all four of their parking spaces were hidden behind some decorative hedges on the opposite side of the building. Just happy to have found a place to park that wasn't in the street, I went in and asked about the check. I repeated what the bank employee from my usual bank had told me, and they stared at me as if I had just attempted to order chinese takeout at their teller booth. In the confusion that followed, I was informed by the bank manager that I was actually looking for the -other- Community Somethingorother Bank on Sam Houston Avenue. Because there are two. And he used to manage the other one. Oh, and also, the place was right next door to the University Police Department.

And I had to drive over there. In my car with the expired inspection sticker. I felt like I might as well just drive on up there, walk inside and tell the lady at the front desk that by the way, I'd been driving a vehicle with an expired sticker for about a month and now, and if she wouldn't mind just giving me my ticket then and there that'd be just dandy.

So I pulled out of the parking lot, determined to complete this leg of my journey without incident. I turned to get back on Sam Houston Avenue, and promptly encountered a red light. Now, Sam Houston Avenue is a very, very busy road. And it is very, very heavily populated with police. And here I was, stuck at a red light, just advertising my expired ticket magnet to everyone who happened to be driving by. At last, the light changed, and I quickly pulled onto the road and headed toward the other bank. And then hit another red light. And another one. And another.

I hit every single damn light on that road until I pulled into the parking lot of that bank. And then every one on the way back. Where before I had felt like blood in the water, I now felt like a giant red herring wrapped in neon lights and hemorrhaging blood, barbecue sauce and shark pheromones everywhere. It is an absolute miracle I made it back to my apartment without being pulled over.

So now I'm back in my apartment with my leaky bathroom ceiling, still neglecting to call the office for a repair. Being grown up sucks. I'm building a blanket fort in my den this weekend so I can sit in it and pretend I'm not.

-The Sarcastic Soul-