Karma Chameleon Kickbacks

Yesterday some fool(s) slashed one of my tires on the Ho-Ho. I got off lucky. The guy who owned a silver Ford Exporer had his truck converted into a low-rider execution style with four flat tires. At first, I wasn't outright angry. I was a bit annoyed by the inconvenience of the truth of the matter, but I it was manageable. That changed through the course of the evening .

I moved the car downstairs and my wife and I tackled the changing of the tire situation. I wasn't in the mood to have someone actually help me change a tire. However, whenever it comes to certain "man-oriented" things, my wife and I always seem to disagree as to how to go about it. I end up doing the dirty work and she tries to direct. Half the time I want to just yell "You do it then if you know so much" and just drop what I'm doing and walk off, but I don't because I can't let her do that as well. If I do, what am I good for?

The next thing that annoyed me was that there's a piece of sh*t spare tire in the back of the car. I would love the meet the genius behind providing a non full-sized spare and beat them with a sack of quarters! What genius! Give them a donut to place 2 tons of machinery upon, and don't allow them to go faster than 50 MPH! Oh! Oh! OH! And give them the most archaic, non-torque-having, inconvenient tools to jack the car up and get the lug nuts off and on!!! WTF!? Luckily, I was smart enough to go out and buy a ceremonious "X" tire jack a few years ago and kept that in one of my cars just for this kind of occasion. So, I used that to get the nuts off, change the tire out, and have it ready to take to the tire shop. I wasn't able to get to a tire shop in time because I had a rehearsal that evening and they couldn't guarantee I would be there on time. Had I known the rest of the night had in store, I totally could of had my tire changed.

I get to rehearsal an hour early so I decide to chill out at a local coffee shop. I spaced out for a good 45-50 minutes listening to my iPod after going through my lines a few times. I was feeling pretty good. I walk up to the rehearsal spot and see a bunch of castmates standing around which is a normal occurance for this rehearsal space as the owners/operators have been anywhere from 15-30 minutes late letting us in. 5 minutes after we were supposed to begin rehearsing, our director shows up. With a little bit of commotion and me not really paying attention, we're told to go to the coffee shop and wait there. Uhm, what? So we begin the trek back to the coffe joint, and I am informed that the director has to verify the details on the space. I was starting to get a bit more angry at this point . We get back to the coffee shop and begin running lines together - for about an hour. I'm like, "Where the hell is the director?!" I was then updated that he had to drive all the way back to his house to get the key for the space as the owners/operators weren't going to be there and had entrusted us with one. Oh man...that sux!

We start the rehearsal and hour and a half later than expected. The rehearsal is a bit rough around the edges due to the discombobulation of the night's events and the fact we're under a formal time constraint for the space. We get through things almost a couple of times, and I have to jet to another rehearsal with Static Republic.

I get to the car and decide I have just barely enough time to put some air into the spare tire. I had been driving on average 25 MPH the entire time I've had it on due to the low air pressure. So, I pull into this gas station and realize I don't have a tire gauage. No problem, I'll pick one up inside. I go ahead and buy the gauge and a couple of drinks for the rest of the night's acitvities and I get to the job of filling the tire up. I noticed that the tire required 60 PSI. When I checked the pressure in the beginning, it was at 10 PSI. DOH! So, I started filling it up. It go up to around 40 PSI and I started hearing the additional hiss coming from somewhere. I disregarded it and continued filling the tire and checking the pressure accordingly to reach that magic number that would allow me to drive at 50 MPH. However, every time I kept checking the gauge, it read 40 PSI.. WTF?! So, I stopped what I was doing and kept hearing the hiss coming from somewhere. I checked the rim of the tire and realized that air was leaking from the spare! "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FAWKIN' KIDDING ME?!" I screamed. Now, I was livid.

I pumped that tire up as best I could and relegated myself to the fact that the current state it was was the best it'd be the entire time. I didn't have enough time to go home and grab the other car and then make it to rehearsal so I drove 25 MPH to the next spot ticked off at the world. I called my wifey on the way there and was incredibly terse with the conversation so she knew I wasn't a happy boy. I let her go after a bit because I feared me lashing out at her for no justifiable reason and wanted to spare her my bitchiness.

I get to the spot saying to myself, "This better be a good rehearsal". I open up the space and turn on the lights. Now, this is where things start lightening up. I see this quick, large, scurring brown fur ball run in the far corner of the room. Fawk! Was that a rat I just saw?! I quickly call up the bandmates and ask if they have any traps for rats. I just saw a huge thing scurry on my floor and I am freaked the fawk out. Mind you, I am still standing at the doorway at this point not knowing what the hell to do. So, I decide to fight the beast by walking in. I take two steps in and then it scurrys along the wall, across all sorts of cables, cans, and trash into another corner. UHG! UGH! UGH! Gross! I get to my drum kit and get my feet off the ground with my knees on the stool. I decided I would try to drive away our pesky little neighbor and start banging on drums and cymbals. He doesn't show his face again. It could be the ludness of the drums or the fact that my rhythm was off quite a bit but it seemed to work. I wasn't particularly in the mood to get the bubonic plague.

The bandmates showed up with golf clubs and we warily played waiting for it to show its ugly face again so we could play Whacking Day a la The Simpsons but only with rats. The rehearsal went awesomely (thank Gawd) and I stayed there till 1-1:30 AM.

I drove home at 20 MPH since there were no cars on the road and chilled out. I got a good conversation with the director regarding the rehearsal and what went down so there are no hard feelings. Things seemed to line themselves up well for the next rehearsal we're having and we should be in good shape with some changes planned for the production, so, I brightened up even more.

I got home and downloaded games to my Wii (Blades of Glory, Super Mario 2, Kid Icarus, and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out) and played till about 4 AM. I passed out to a show called "Russia's Roswell" on the History Channel.

Thank you tire slasher(s) and rat(s) for what you did. It made me realize a few things:

1. I need to ensure that my vehicles are well equipped for emergency situations. right now, neither one of them really are. Today I will spend the day getting them ready by buying roadside safety kits, buying new tires and full-sized spares for them. I would not have done these thing had you not messed with my car.

2. The fear of being proven wrong and not being useful is still pretty strong with me. I need to work on that.

3. No matter how bad things seem to me, they could always be worse. Like, you can have a rat in your room chomping on your cables! I need to stay more positive with my outlook on situations.

4. Put out good energy, you get good energy. The second I lightened up, the universe fixed all the things that were bothering me.

5. Everyone loves Mario. Everyone loves Mario.

Currently playing : Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!