holy crap...what a morning

originally posted on the posterous hosted site. july 17, 2010 at 11:06:00am

for those of you who don't know me, if you ask my friends they will tell you that (1) i'm a great guy (2) i'm a bit off-center and (3) holy crap he goes from zero to d-bag in 3 seconds.

yeah, that's the kind of morning i've had. honestly there is nothing that will bring out my alter-ego (number 3) quicker than the parking garage, besides driving or not obeying the rules... this morning, the garage set me off, and i will be the first to admit it is no one's fault but my own...but in my own defense, i relay this story to you...lol.

the story goes like this... i got up at 4am so that i could get to the airport on time for my work trip to san francisco. and then it happened -- i realized that the clicker for the garage door is in the car. yeap, you guessed it, the monday-to-friday ("pop-culture" reference, bonus points if anyone gets it - tad you can't play) clicker is in the monday-to-friday car. doh! let me explain: we rent a parking space in a residential building that is managed by a commercial company, and at 4am they are closed. they actually close around midnight or something like that, which left me with me with no access, that's right boys and girls...no way to get to kirby (the name of my mini). without the clicker there is only an after-hours number to call.

finally i got through on the number, and am told that it would be 45 minutes to an hour before someone could come out and let me in -- that there were ten other people ahead of me (but wait, i'm a monthly contract holder doesn't that result in some sort of priority and customer service -- ah-um that would be a big nooooo).

needless to say, i was flying out of dulles and still needed to stop by the office, there was no way this was going to work. the oh so polite (not) person on the phone tells me, dare i say informs me, i have one of two choices, "deal with it or take a cab." well at 4am, i have a shorter than normal fuse and well, let's just say if the fcc fined people for bad language on the phone, i'd be in jail right now. i went back in the building, told david about the situation, barked some orders about not parking there anymore (this is not the first problem i have had with them - they park full-size cars in compact spaces all the time and by god i own a mini for a reason, those compact car spots are like a shot of vodka at an aa meeting -- hard to find) anyway, i then proceeded to get my bags, and hit the streets for a cab...

cabs...which when i was dealing with the parking garage, locked doors and bad customer service, were a dime-a-dozen, i saw no less than ten of them. i am not lying, it was like a motorcade of cabs, like macy's was replacing the floats in the thanksgiving-day parade with cars for hire. on my return to the street - not so much...it was like a ghost town. no cabs, no nothing. i finally hailed a cab, but you guessed it, he doesn't take credit cards. so i decide i'll walk three blocks to the hotels to catch a cab there -- no cabs there either. finally one shows up, he takes credit cards and says sure, "i'll take you to your office in tysons and then on to the airport." but there is one catch -- no a/c. normally at 4am, this wouldn't have been a problem, but when i was walking to the hotels it must have been like 80+ degrees and 125% humidity (we had thunderstorms last night, on top of the earthquake that morning - earthquakes? yes i know it's dc, that's another post for another time) and needless to say i must have looked like i just ran a marathon, badly.

i take the no a/c cab, and when we get to my office, i found out that the front door to the building doesn't have a key sensor (that I could find) and i had to run around the building to the parking garage. the taxi-driver must have thought i was a nut. i did what i needed to do, and returned to the waiting un-air-conditioned cab.

but all said we got to dulles with no problems (though i think he might have dozed off once on the toll road) and surprisingly enough it was cheaper to go from the house to the office and then from the office to dulles on the meter then it would have been to go from my house to dulles, the normally stated rate is $60. so i might have to do that again. and now, i'm sitting on a plane on my way to san fran for the week for work blogging about my morning, it can only get better - right? (oh no, second round of turbulence....)