Ok... why I haven't been posting...

because the last week SUCKED!

Last Tuesday, I was blissfully driving to work. And then, while making a perfectly legal U-Turn (something that you have to do constantly while driving in New Orleans... there's no such thing as a left turn here), a Vietnamese teenager whacked into the rear passenger side of my car and threw me out the street into the parking lot of a mall. And there were lots of little concrete barriers on the edge of that mall parking lot. And I went right over all of them.

So, I was physically fine but completely freaked out. The kid stops. I call the police on my cellphone. A witness gives me her phone number. While waitng for the police the kid says to me, "oh... my parents gonna take car now.. this my third accident." It was almost (ALMOST) sort of amusing. (ALMOST... as in not really amusing at all at the time...)

My poor car had the front passenger tire blown completely out and the rim quite mangled. The rear side of my car had lots of crushed impact areas in the metal. And the rear passenger tire wasn't flat but it was pushed in at a strange angle and had part of the leather bib from his car somehow trapped between the tire and the rim.

So, the police come. They ticket the kid. In the meantime, my friend Carlos happens to be passing by and stops when he sees me. And, Denise, my store manager drives over from the store after I call her.

A towtruck takes my car away to some place with the ominous name of Champ's Collision Center.

I go to rent a car later that day and discover that the renewal sticker on the back of my driver's license is missing. No car rental. I get a ride home from my saintly friend, Robert.

The next day Robert kindly takes me to the DMV to fix my license and then to rent a car. But all of this is highly stressing.

So, Thursday begins four days off of work for me. Should've been sweet. I'm feeling a bit better since I have the rental car. And I have a pleasant fourth hanging out with Tom and Brian. We go to the river for the fireworks. And then I go out to the Quarter for a bit with Tom and his friend, Kelly. We dance at the Shim Sham and drink at 735.

Then, Friday, I'm trying to continue to put it all past me. And the call comes around 4 pm. "Mr Zeigler, your car is totalled. We'll cut you a check on Monday. And you have the rental paid thru Wednesday."

Fuck me.... I have 5 days to buy a new car. So, Saturday, I basically carshop from 9 am to 5 pm, covering an area of about 100 miles wide. I finally find a car I like in Denham Springs, a good hour and ten minutes from New Orleans. And they have a rebate going on for $2000 thru Monday.

So, I stop at my parents' house that nite, exhausted and stressed from carshopping all day in a 105 degree heat index. My sister and her family are there. My sister valiantly volunteers to drive to New Orleans on Monday to pick me up so I don't have to deal with getting the rental back to NO after buying a car.

Sunday, I basically sit around and totally stress out all day. And do a lot of research on the Internet.

Monday, I head to work for a 7 am 2 hour mandatory meeting. Then I rush around NO, picking up and deposting the insurance check and getting all my stuff out of and the license plate off my old car. And then I rush back to meet my sister at my store. We head to my parents' again, because my father has to be involved in the haggling.

So, two and a half or so hours later... I'm driving a 2002 Dodge Neon SXT with an EXTREMELY LOUD yellow paint job. It's loaded out with power everything, a sunroof, CD changer, etc... (And if you don't like Neons or think my car sounds cheap and tacky... well, fuck you...)

And I finally feel like a gigantic weight is off my shoulders. Whew.