i'm a cartoon character

I'd like to say I've had a bad day, but with all that's going on in the world, I realize my day was really just a cartoon. You know the kind- the one where the silly clown drives a car that breaks down and the wheels fall off and the hood pops open and smoke seeps out from all over, and the one where the silly coyote is trying to run down the road runner on a bike when he hits a curb wrong and goes flying and little birdies circle all around his head.

It wasn't even as bad as all that. My friend Chelsea and I headed downtown in rush hour traffic to go to the friends and family event of my boyfriend's new restaurant opening. It's like 100 degrees in Texas this time of day in July so we are both hot and running the AC full blast so as not to show up as two separate puddles. Anyways, so the car is practically parked on the interstate for most of the trip and at red lights for the balance. The needle is dangling dangerously close to H for red hot, engine on fire. However, we make it there about six o'clock in tact and without blowing up the motor in my car. We walk in the restaurant which is wall to wall people, and we are immediately greeted by the other general manager working with Brian. I know its him even though we've never met, but he doesn't know its me. At least I don't think he does. He seems to stay right with us all through the restaurant and he's chatting it up. So I look at him for a minute and then I say like the Alabama blonde I am, "What's your name?" He says Ashton and extends his hand. I say I'm Katie, and then pause because I don't want to have to say Brian's girlfriend because that sounds stupid to me, so I just say Brian has told me a lot about you." I'm so not playing with a full deck.

Anyways, Chelsea and I miraculously manage to find a small booth and we sit and eat with Brian fetching us everything we need. He's a total sweetheart. We leave in good time, but the car which I've decided is now called Vicky, just like the GPS inside her, is not ready. Anyways, I crank her and she's all but coughing up blood. I never thought we would make it back to Plano but the last thing I wanted was to breakdown in Brian's restaurant parking lot on the day of the opening in my ancient car. I would have been mortified. I didnt care where I broke down as long as it wasn't there, so we get going with windows down and air off this time and backroads instead of the interstate and manage by the grace of God to make it back to my apt. I have no idea if the car will even crank in the morning for work but that's another day and today has had enough of its own junk.

When I finally get back I realize I will need to get outside and do something physical to calm my nerves so I decide to go for a little bike ride. In the car on the way back I was just remarking to Chelsea how we didn't get any rain like the weather people said we would. I'm about a mile from my apt, almost finished with my bike ride, when a large bolt of lightning distracts my focus for a second, I hit a curb just wrong and go flying through the air. Luckily, I managed to tuck and roll and land in the grass almost unscathed, but I'm all covered in dirt and grass stained up. There are a million people on the parkway and at the gas station who must have seen my wreck so I jump up and dust myself off and jump back on my bike, only to discover that my back tire is flat. Still, I rode the jewel about a quarter of a mile with the flat tire trying to be all nonchalant and then I walked her all the way in, just seconds before the rain came.

Life's tough, get a helmet!