God, I hate Christmas.
No sooner do I go about singing its praises than I get screwed right up the poop chute. Granted, the events that unfolded were not really the holiday's fault, but because of the temporal coincidence, Christmas gets some of the periphery blame.
Christmas itself wasn't so bad, if you discount the 5 hour drive to Pittsburgh from PhilaHELLphia. My evil mother insisted that I drive with my brother. That ended up being a bit of a boon, since he kept me company and took care of the tolls. All in all the holiday went by pretty smoothly. I did all of the typical things like visiting the grandparents, hanging out with old college friends, and drinking.
I also took advantage of the cold to investigate an abandoned mine near my grandparents' house. I had long wanted to check it out, but had been vexed by the four inches of water on the floor. Through the miracle of crystallization, that normally liquid dihydrogen-oxide had achieved a solid state. Naturally, my parents would never have approved of such an endeavor. When they inquired as to what devious machinations required a flashlight, I replied merely that we were up to "something completely wholesome." When pressed, I muttered something about group anal sex. Oddly, I got away with that. The mine was cool, I guess. No human skeletons, though.
So the rest of the holiday went well enough, and on Christmas day we began the journey back.
Now some background is in order. I currently drive a 1993 Ford Tempo with 109,000 miles on it. It has been pretty reliable, but I had plans to replace it with a new vehicle by April at the latest. While I had the vehicle, I never had any major malfunctions. All that changed on Christmas Day.
About halfway through the trip, the AMP warning light came on. I dutifully pulled over and popped the hood, but the AMP light went off by itself. "Whatever," I thought. "The car is so old, it probably has ghosts."
We were within 10 minutes of home when it stalled at a traffic light. It NEVER does that. Then it made a hideous shrieking noise and smoke that stank of burning rubber filled the interior. I quickly pulled into a Wawa and popped the hood again, discovering that the fan belt was gone. What fun.
There's no joy that equals being stuck in 18 degree weather (that's -27.8 degrees in that creepy scale known widely as Centigrade), miles from home, on freakin' CHRISTMAS DAY!! Thank Christ's foreskin for AAA! Getting home was actually pretty simple, but stressful. Then my evil brother takes a shit in MY bathroom and stinks up the whole apartment for a half hour. That's the last time I allow him to evacuate his rancid bowels in my habitation.
Then today I got another late Christmas present. I get my car towed to the local mechanic and get a fix-it bill for $500! Egad! Did I get ripped off? Probably. They claimed that my whole alternator was shot…probably with the help of a few well-placed hammer blows. I also missed a day of work, and I'm about 2 weeks shy of having any sick days.
So it comes down to this: the car I'm getting rid of in just a few months costs me half a grand and a day's pay from a job in which I'm less than a month away from earning sick days. Of course this all has to happen on Christmas Day. It could have been worse, sure. It could have broken down in the middle of the state, an area which is exceedingly rural, and ended up with the "Deliverance Christmas Special." It could have been worse, but it still sucked as it was.
So what's the moral of this story? Just because it's Christmas doesn't mean the universe won't pass up the opportunity to kick you in the teeth.
