Sorry to leave you hanging. But a combination of stress and waiting 30 minutes in the freezing cold left me deathly ill.
Anyway, the guy wants $1,500. I don't have that much. He was, however, kind enough to work out a payment plan with me. $500 today (thursday), rest later.
As for the dent in my door, well, my parents haven't noticed it yet. They're not the most observant people on the planet. I'm sure they will, either today or tomorrow. And then I'm going to look completely innocent and suggest that perhaps a drunk driver collided with it while it was parked.
After I got back to the office, I started running a fever about midafternoon. I couldn't really go home early, so I stuck it out. I didn't do anything work-related (other than answering phones), but I stuck it out.
I canceled plans with Dirk and stayed home Monday night. I didn't even go online. I slept.
I woke up even sicker on Tuesday. My fever was higher, and I was coughing so hard that it often seemed as though I would suffocate. I brought Dirk over, and slept until midafternoon. Then, we had to go to the bank to deposit his paycheck, so we could start paying the guy for damages to his car.
Keep in mind, I was still running a fever. Anyway, the car needed gas and I decided, over Dirk's objections, that we'd wait to get gas until we got to the Exxon near his bank. Unfortunately, that Exxon wasn't accepting credit cards (which explains why it was completely empty). So, I remembered one just up the road. Except that turned out to be a Mobile station (which I don't have a card for). So, we continued down the road, with the fuel gauge sitting happily at "E". Meanwhile, Dirk was getting angrier and angrier. When we finally found the Exxon station, he said, "Wouldn't it have been quicker if we went to the first one (we passed one on the way to his bank)?"
I could drag this out until you're clawing out your eyes, begging me for mercy. We don't have time for that right now, there's too much to be done.
Anyway, he shouted at me, I cried like an idiot (I was under a fuck of a lot of stress), we found out he couldn't take out any money anyway. Because his bank's fucked up. He spent a lot of time apologizing for yelling at me. I don't like being yelled at.
Tuesday night, I did nothing. Slept.
Wednesday, Dirk walked over to my house and took care of me all day. Even walked up to 7-11 to get milk when we discovered that the milk in my fridge had separated into chunky bits. He also cooked for me and urged me to take as many naps as I wanted to and kissed me a lot. Dirk's so nice to me.
I was feeling much, much better Wednesday night, so I agreed to visit Cathy and help her get a firm footing in the Internet. Mainly, this meant helping her set up an e-mail account. I also showed her a picture of C– (which I keep stored on my e-mail account), and we joked that she could e-mail him out of the blue, explaining that she's single and I showed her his picture. She also confessed a deep, dark secret that she's held close to her bosom all the years since she first heard I was dating Roachboy. She used to hear a noise that she described as "cats being tortured to death." When she looked out her bedroom window to find out where the horrible noise was coming from, she found out it was only Roachboy, singing at the elementary school. I am not making this up. She was too polite to tell me about this for years.
Of course, I'd be lying if I said that didn't make my day.
She loaned me a book, called The Silver Wolf. I was expecting it to be semi-lame, as most lycanthropy stories are. This, however, was fantastically well-written. I stayed up late to read it.
Interesting news: apparently, Alex came back from lunch a few weeks ago limping. When questioned, he told everyone that he fell down the stairs. When Sharon, one of the women in the office, questioned him further, he admitted that he'd gone to lunch with the priest of his church, and they had sex. He said that he pulled a muscle while they were screwing. His church is a gay church.
There's something very wrong with that boy.