Bells and Whistles, and Dumb

This morning I had an early-ish appointment to have my blood checked. I had slept poorly--or really I stayed up too late watching the news about the BP scrooge-up and then I started reading Year of Wonders in bed. Do you know this book? It's about a young woman in a rural village of England in 1666. Yeah, great year. Everyone has told me how good this book is. So I got a ways into it and then I texted my sister:

Hey is anything going to happen in this book but a lot of people dying of the plague and also some children die?

She said:

Yeah that's pretty much it. Few twists but yeah. ;)

I don't know if she was winking at the plague or death in general or what. But I told her:

I don't think I can read this right now. I'll put it aside and reread The Road. Ha!

The "ha" was designed to signal that I was being mordant. You can't leave things open to interpretation when texting, you know. Then I told her I shouldn't be awake and that I would let her go, and she told me that she had been texting me while on the elliptical trainer. We agreed that should probably be illegal.

Then I tried to go to sleep and failed until very late/early. So when I got in the car to go to my doctor's appointment, I was tired. Also it was raining and I was worried about getting Codi wet. I don't know what the moisture might do to her. Do you remember Gremlins?

I started the minivan and as I rolled down the driveway, it began making a gentle chiming noise. The dashboard indicator said that there was a door open. This car has power everything and one of the sliding doors has been acting up, so I thought it might be ajar. I put it in park, used the button to open both sliding doors, and then closed them again. I also gave my door a little slam, but there was still the dashboard light and the chiming.

"Oh well," I thought. "The doors are obviously closed. This is a dumb wiring problem, or something with the door sensor, but maybe the chiming will stop after a minute." I rolled into the street.

"Beep beep beep!" Oh that was kind of annoying, but I was undeterred. I plugged in my iPhone and turned up the music. "BEEP BEEP BEEP."

I thought, "Am I really going to make this fifteen minute drive with this noise? I guess so." As I accelerated out of my neighborhood, the noise was like "OMG BONG BONG BONG!" And I felt defiant. I was like, "Yeah, I know you think the door is open, dumbass! BUT IT'S NOT."

I was not, perhaps, operating at the peak of my faculties.

After a few minutes I became numb to the bonging, which by that time was like, "HOLY CRAP BONG BONG BOOP what is she doing STOP HER OR I WILL SAY BONG AGAIN!" But there were certain songs that were almost the same pitch as the bonging so I didn't notice as much.

Or actually on some level I did notice and it was the most jangling sensory experience I have had in recent memory. Just awful, the bonging. And my angry defiance of the bonging. I think I was a tiny bit crazy.

At length, I pulled into a parking place at the doc's and scampered through the rain. I had my blood drawn and earned an A+ in blood. Then I steeled myself to go back out and face the bonging. I thought, "Okay, I am going to get to the bottom of this sliding door situation if I have to rewire the car right this minute. I will do like on Star Trek and remodulate the sensors or something."

Then, as I walked toward my parking place, I could see that the front passenger door was basically open. The door was about an inch from being flush with the side of the car.

So that could have been the problem. That right there. And I stepped in a puddle as I was closing the door. Who wears thong sandals on a rainy day? I do.

Then, in the driver's seat, the no-bonging silence was so nice. But it was also kind of a smug silence.

Sometimes I am dumb. But I do wish you a happy Friday. xoxo-B