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Sunday, February 13, 2011

Buick trama brings felion manifestation of Artemis: I now have a roommate.

"So there I was," driving back from Albuquerque last weekend in the trusty blue Buick. I had had some overheating problems, but they seemed to be fixed so I didn't think twice about the trip home. Unfortunately the Buick did...

I was just past Morriarty, New Mexico when the shit totally hit the fan. And by shit, I mean all my coolant. The weather that day was basically wind swept tundra blizzard. Not appealing to be stuck on the side of the road in any way shape of form. Instead of becoming a damsel in distress, I decided I should nurse it to the next exit and do some motor surgery in a gas station parking lot there. The engine continued to overheat but still was moving so I kept going. I got to an exit ramp and rolled off it. The engine was starting to lug and make clattery noises. Just as I got to the stop sign at the top of the exit ramp, it clattered and then everything was totally silent... except for the snow filled wind blowing across the plains.

Well at least I made it to the exit right? Unfortunately I looked around an there seemed to be nothing but an abandoned Route 66 motel and bar. I was just as fucked here as I would have been on the freeway. I monkeyed around with the car trying to get it back in running order... but I wasn't able to effect anything. I did manage to nicely drain my battery. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I was fucked and needed to call for help.

Cell phones are magical!

A friend of mine agreed to come pick me up so that at least I would get to work the next day on time. It was still almost 3 hours away so I would have to abandon the car where it was. The Buick right now was beyond repair in that location in that weather. Knowing he was on his way I did the only sensible thing and curled up on the bench seat to take a nap. I did for about 2 hours... when I got a phone call. Basically he said that the free way was closed for snow and he couldn't get to me. Well shit... He had talked to the state patrol and asked them to come check on me. Shortly after he hung up, the state patrol did indeed come and knock on my window.

I talked to him for a while... mostly about weather. As I was talking to him I turned and saw that the abandoned old bar was now totally filled with big rig trucks. I had checked earlier, but it had been closed so I asked what was going on? He said, "well that there is a titty bar! Maybe you should just go hang out there..."

Always one to follow advice from a figure of authority, I did just what the cop suggested.

Holy shit! I happened to break down next to a strip club? I am a lucky SOB!

So I find the door and go in!

To call it a strip club is quite an exaggeration. It is really a bar where some old ladies stand around mostly naked... except that it was not a very well heated building, so they wore tennis shoes, panties, gloves, a coat, and knit hat. I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer and the guy next to me asked if I was Bulgarian.

Not that I know of.

Turns out this guy was Ukrainian! After taking about 30 seconds to expend all the conversational Russian I remember (Mostly How to order beer and "don't hitting tree") we talked about Ukraine, women, beer, women, cars, women, pool, women... etc. It turns out that just that day that guy had defleshed his finger with his wedding ring. As he was jumping down from his truck, he caught the ring on his mirror and it pulled the finger flesh right off like he was taking off a sock. He stuffed it back onto his naked bones and then drove himself 50 miles to the hospital. They sewed it back together... but he decided to take it easy the rest of the day and just drove to this bar to park in the lot here.

Very reasonable.

About this time we found out that the high way was opening back up and that one of the dudes from work would be driving buy soon and I could catch a ride back with him.

So I did. Very anti-climactic given where the evening had the potential to end up. Here I was in a bar full of truckers and ladies of the night completely trapped from the rest of civilization. I was one twist of supernatural away from "Dusk Till Dawn" and instead I got a long ride home to a cold dark garage where it turns out my hot water heater had shit it self.

Fuck.

No hot water, it was well below zero in here, my best car was dead on the side of the road becoming a lump in the snow bank, and I had missed out on a night of fighting vampires. On top of all that I had work in the morning and no reasonable way to get there. Damn it. And I was going to have to go to bed and work smelling like smoky trucker titty bar.

There are worse things.

In the morning I decided to take my most reasonable method of my unreasonable methods of transportation to work, (my 1954 Chevy 2 Ton flat bed truck) only to find that someone had stolen the gas out of it while I had been gone.

This was all very un-Dude!

Anyways, over the course of the week i manage to learn all about water heaters by disassembling and rebuilding mine, which was kind of fun. On Saturday my buddy from work that had attempted to come get me in the snow and I went up with a trailer to drag home the corpse of the Buick. Success on that front.

Today, I was attempting to resurrect the Buick out in my front gravel area. Things were going well enough... still no final prognosis but things are looking good for at least a few thousand more miles on this engine.

So while I was out working on the Buick, my hippy neighbor dude rolls in to say hi. (He also drives a 76 Buick Electra just like mine so there was some automatic grandfalooning from the start.) Obviously he was sad to hear about mine, but offered a lot of advice anyways. As we were standing here in the shop, he noticed that there were quite a few mice running around.

(Yea... while I was gone the last few weeks mice moved in and took the place over. There were empty beer cans and pizza boxes everywhere from one of their parties and they didn't clean up at all. The little bastards even ate all my spaghetti right out of the box!) I liked the mice when there was only two of them and I only saw them if I was really quiet and watched for them. Then they were cool. It got to the point they were ordering pay-per-view on my credit card. Things were out of hand.

So my hippy neighbor says. "Hey man... I got this cool cat man. I didn't want it but my lady friend brought it over cause she knows I am like a cat whisperer or something and she didn't want it to get hit in the road. I don't know if she mouses, but you can have her if you want."

Why not. I would rather have one cat roommate than on hundred billion mice roommates. Worst case: I am cleaning one more animal's poop out of my living area... best case: I am only cleaning one animal's poop out of my living area!

So it turns out the cat is awesome and cuddly. Still I don't know if she is a mouser cat. I let her go in the shop and then went back to working on the Buick. When I came back in a few minutes later I went to say hi and make sure she wasn't to spazed out by the move. I couldn't find her.

Suddely I hear a fight going on in the wall!

IN THE WALL!

This little barely more than a kitten had crawled into the mouse hole after them and was fighting them all inside the wall.

To say that she mouses would be like saying Babe Ruth played baseball.

After HOUR five of continuous prowling of my shop, I asked her her name... Turns out it is Artemis.

5 comments:

Amanda said...

you didn't tell me it was below 0 (!) INSIDE your shop when you got home. you need a better solution than two little space heaters and a parachute.

Broheim said...

This kind of weird shit never happens to me. But glad you have buffy the mouse slayer for your new cuddly roommate.

amateur.sophist said...

If it makes you feel any better i woke up to a broken furnace this morning as well.

But I had it working in 30 min and my cars are (as far as i know) all fully functionally.

I think you need that AWD 300C

Notorious said...

I agree I do need an AWD 300C... probably in convertible. It seems I just have to wait a year or two and they will be out.

Bro, hang out with me more and I am sure this sort of thing will happen all the time. Just think of Deception Pass or Ruby falling off the cliff. See, just hang out with me and crazy stuff is bound to happen! Also, the cat says "hi."

MAGNUS THORSON said...

"Once my foot slipped near a horribly yawning brink, and I had a moment of ecstatic fear. I must have been musing a long time, for I could not see any of the party but plump Capt. Norrys. Then there came a sound from that inky, boundless, farther distance that I thought I knew; and I saw my old black cat dart past me like a winged Egyptian god, straight into the illimitable gulf of the unknown. But I was not far behind, for there was no doubt after another second. It was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth's centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly in the darkness to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players.
My searchlight expired, but still I ran. I heard voices, and yowls, and echoes, but above all there gently rose that impious, insidious scurrying; gently rising, rising, as a stiff bloated corpse gently rises above an oily river that flows under the endless onyx bridges to a black, putrid sea."

READ THIS: http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/theratsinthewalls.htm