They Typically Come In Threes

I left work on Friday at about 7. Bif picked me up, which meant that drinking could get started all that sooner; yeah me. As we got near the apartment I noticed that a Jeep was parked in the spot in front that, because of the yellow zone painting but lack of sign, most people don’t realize they can park there without incurring the wrath of the parking gods.

“That looks like Manboy’s Jeep,” I thought to myself as I continued up on the hill to another spot.

It turns out it looked like Manboy’s Jeep because it was Manboy’s Jeep. As I neared the apartment, there was High Five Hickman waving hello, Manboy talking in low tones on his cell phone. I tried to quickly remember if I had made plans with them and then forgotten, but that seemed pretty unlikely as I rarely make plans with anyone anymore.

Nope, there was an accident. A car full of uninsured chumps had rolled back into the near brand new Jeep and dented the door. It was simply coincidence that brought them right to my front door. The chumps were occasionally coming back to Manboy with a new total of promised money to keep him from getting the police involved but he was holding steady. If he were a band, he’d be the Hold Steady.

I dropped my stuff off upstairs and come back outside to wait with them until the cops showed. It was four, tall, uninsured guys and the only defense Manboy and Hickman had going for them was Hickman’s rape whistle, which I poo-pooed at the time, but I don’t know what those guys had in mind. I mean I’m not any sort of badass, and am more likely to hurt myself than anyone else were we to get in the shit, but these guys don’t know that. I’m big and can scowl with the best of them.

The cops came and I left to get crazy drunk on whisky and Rainier. At some point I poured a mess of Cholula Hot Sauce into my mouth. These are the things that are bound to happen when grandma watches the baby for the weekend.

Saturday night (which is alright for fighting), there was another accident right in front of the apartment again. I awoke round abouts 1:30 in the morning to the sound of a serious collision and people yelling. I had passed out watching a movie on the couch and my first thought was, “what the hell did Riley do?” Then it was, “Do we have any ice cream?” Then it was, “Oooh, I bet that was an accident.”

I got up and looked out the living room window to see one car attached to another. First car was completely facing the wrong way in that lane, second car had a good portion of its front wrapped around the light pole on the corner. I took another look at the clock, realized that closing time was fast upon us and had probably had something to do with this here incident. “Bummer,” I believe I mumbled to myself.

Moments later, sirens came a calling. I laid down on the living room floor (which ironically is where I had found myself earlier that afternoon, pounding headache and uncontrollable sweating that I tacked up to chugging hot sauce) and watched the patterns that the red and blue lights made on the ceiling as they bent themselves around the light pole, pushed through the curtains, danced along the molding.

I’m beginning to believe that the newly placed neon sign outside the building is responsible for this mini rash of bad car karma.