My Vida Loca!! (Part II)

This post is part of a series. For part I, see My Vida Loca! (Part I)

So I lost my wallet...

In the hood, where I live...

My neighbor, the Infamous Hen-Dog said, "You know, you didn't lose it on our street. It must've fell off the trunk of your car on that turn up on Capital Avenue. Because if you lost it on our street, the crackheads would've brought it back, but they would have wanted some money for finding it."

I nodded when he said that. We do have very loyal crackheads. But Hen-Dog's commentary didn't make me feel much better.

I was still bumming...

But I had to be proactive.

So that Tuesday, the 29th, I took the morning off from work and went to the DMV to get a driver's licensce. I didn't get there at nine o'clock a.m. like I planned though. Yeah, I was on my way, but some ten miles from home, I had a thought:

Did I let the garage door down when I left home that morning?

So my newly paranoid ass turned back around and sped back home. Sure enough, I'd let the garage door down. Didn't hurt to go back and check, though.

My trip to the Union City DMV was uneventful, and it took about an hour to get my license. I sat there during that time reading a book and pecking away on my laptop, making a few corrections to my manuscript. I left and went to Wal-mart, buying a new wallet along with a few other things. On my way to work, I dropped off a few mix CDs to my book club president.

Then I went to work. I should've went home, because I hate working half-days. I don't get anything done... I chalked it up as a socializing day.

Well, on my way home, I stopped by a downtown grocery store to get some chicken. I wanted some sauteed chicken to go over my salad, and they had a sale.

So I leave the grocery store and speed on down the road... Traffic is a bit heavy. You know how downtown Atlanta traffic is.

I've got my music crunk, bobbing my head hard to one of The Kat's mixtapes, singing down.

I make a turn onto Courtland Street from North Avenue.

I thougt to myself, "Damn, this road feel a little crunchy."

I kept driving. I said aloud "I don't remember them doing any construction on the road. Why is it feeling gravelly and crunchy?"

I sat in traffic that had accumulated.

When I tried to move again, I realized... The road ain't crunchy.

My tire had blew out. And the way things sounded, I was riding on rim!!

"Dang!" I yelled.

I tried to pull over to the side of the road, in the midst of angry ATLiens hurriedly trying to get home. I almost got hit by a big ass SUV when I pulled into his lane. He flipped me off and said some terrible words.

"You'll be alright!" I yelled as he went around me.

I sat there in my car, on the side of the road, waiting for traffic to quiet down. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a throng of cars stopped behind me at a stoplight... The road was clear, so I hopped out of my car. I ran around to the passenger side and sure enough, my tire was flat, all the way down to the rim.

I wanted to scream.

You see, my AAA card was in my wallet... the wallet I'd lost, that is.

I wanted to cry!

Okay... so I am standing there, staring down at the dead tire, trying to think... Trying to think of who to call and what to do.

And who jumps out of nowhere?

A freakin' CRACKHEAD!!!!

He scared the hell out of me!!

I gasped. I had no idea WHERE he'd come from... It was like he'd jumped out of the bushes or something. He smelled like he'd jumped out of a trash can. I stepped back, away from the thick cloud of funk he produced.

"What's up baby?" he yelled, arms stretched out like he was about to give me a hug or something.

I looked him up and down. He was tall, dark as midnight, thin as a rail. He was a young dude, dressed in an oversized black t-shirt, baggy pants with the one pants leg rolled up (LL Cool J style) and a pair of dirty Timberland boots. He looked like a dirty crunchy black brokedown version of the Mayor of my hood, the cleanest crackhead in the world, Snake.

(Sidenote: Snake has been locked up all summer long. I miss him sooooo much!!)

"Baby, you got a flat tire," he declared.

"Uh, yeah," I said, still looking him up and down...

...Wondering silent to myself where my blade was, just in case I had to shank this fool.

"Well, you got a spare?" he asked when I didn't say anything else.

"Uh, yeah," I said quietly.

"Well let's get this tire changed, baby!" he yelled, rubbing his hands together.

We walked around to my trunk, and I opened it, quickly surveying the contents to see if I had anything worth stealing in it. My laptop and bookbag were in there. I quickly grabbed up both.

I also grabbed a long screwdriver. My homeboy Tiny must've left it in my car when he was changing out my speakers (an upcoming post).

I threw the bags in the backseat, and the screwdriver in the door panel of the drivers side.

...I would need it, just in case I needed to shank this crackhead.

He pulled the spare tire out, and even found a jack and tools that I didn't even know that I had.

"Damn baby, you got a lot of money in this trunk," he yelled as he scavenged pennies from the floor of my trunk.

That pissed me off. (Where is my screwdriver?)

"Uh, yeah," I said. "Yo bruh, cut that out, man," I said quietly.

He laughed and removed the spare tire from the floor of my trunk. He jacked up the car and commenced to removing the lug nuts. While he did this, I had to hear curse ladened tales of his encounters with the police, his kids, and about the shelter somewhere down the street.

(Why is it that dudes I don't know and don't want to know tend to get diarrhea of the mouth and tell me ALLL of their business? Dang!)

He caught me looking at him and smiled. I stepped back in disgust. I wasn't scoping him out, I looking at his hair. He had that good hair, and it wasn't from a kit. I was looking at him, wondering how a man as black as asphalt could have hair that damn curly. I was in NO way checking him out.

It was NOT that kind of party.

One of the lug nuts would not come off... So he begins jump up and down wildly on the thing he was using to remove the lug nuts. His antics worked, a bit too well. The lug nut came off, along with a piece of the stud.

We both yelled "DAMN!!"

I looked at him, wishing that I had the screwdriver in my hand...

So I could shank him...

We stood there a minute looking at the tire. I walked a few feet away and picked up the lug nut containing a piece of the stud off of the ground. I bounced the hot lug nut around in my hand, and blew the dirt off of it.

"I'm sorry, baby," he apologized.

I was pissed off. I waved my finger in the direction of the tire. "Dude, I can ride off of three studs. Put the spare tire on," I suggested.

He just looked at me.

"Shorty, come on! Put it on!" He needed to hurry up before I had more thoughts of running to get that screwdriver!

He pulled off my tire, and rolled it to me. It was a dead tire alright, wires and threads poking all out... I hadn't had them checked this year. It was definitely time for a new set or something.

He put on the spare tire, and let the jack down.

The spare tire was flat.

"Let me put all this stuff in the trunk, then we will roll to the gas station and get some air for the spare, baby," he said.

Okay. I didn't know of a gas station downtown, but he said it was around the corner. Traffic was thick, so I thought if he tried anything, I could shank him with the screwdriver, and toss his ass out of my car into a ditch or something...

We got in the car. I let ALL of the windows down because of the high amount of funk emitting from this dude. He saw some change in my cupholder and began scavenging it. Didn't matter to me, because it was some sticky change that had been sitting there after some peppermint melted in the cupholder. He could have that damn 8 cents if he could pull it out for all I care. He started looking around on the floor.

"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked.

"Baby, you sure do have a lot of change laying around!"

Luckily, there was a gas station on the next block. He jumped out and put air in all of my tires.

"Thank you," I said, and gave him 5 dollars.

He stared at me.

"What, man?" I asked.

"I need a ride," he said. "Just down the steet to Auburn Avenue."

He jumped back in the car before I could say anything... I turned on the street and headed towards Auburn.

Then he asked a question.

"Baby, you got a man?"

I almost screamed in utter disgust. "Yes. Several," I said.

"Oh, OK, just checking," he said. He then went on to talk about his sexual prowess, which was a bit hilarious.

I had the screwdriver in my left hand, out of sight...

Just in case I had to shank this fool.

I let him out 2 blocks down from the gas station. He leaned back down into the car, still trying to run game.

"They call me Lye-Lye. And if you need anything at all, anything, some loving, your tires changed, anything at all, you come look for me, ok baby?"

"Oh, of course," I said with a smile, trying my BEST not to break out laughing.

I sat at a stoplight and watched him march across the street, counting his dollars and scavenged change...

I let go of my screwdriver, glad I didn't have to shank that fool.

Mad because of the sweat and funk he left on my cloth passenger seat.

I drove the 3 miles to my house and parked the car in the garage, careful to leave all the windows down so that the funk could dissipate.

I walked into the garage later in the evening and discovered the funk was now thick in my garage. I grabbed a spray bottle of Febreeze and soaked the seat with half the bottle.

I had my tire changed and stud replaced down the street from my house on Friday at a bootleg tire place. Hen-Dog and I pass the tire place everyday on the way to work, and I never saw it until he pointed it out to me last Thursday.

Now, getting a new tire(s) is a whole 'nother piece of drama in my week. I won't go into it... Let's just say, despite my LOUD protests, the mechanics made me go get my own studs, lug nuts and brakes... (yeah i said it, brakes... I needed new brakes). If that ain't bootleg, I don't know what is.

And you know how old men like to flirt.

Um... Let's just say it took a LOT of talking to get the work done on my tire... LOL!!

I also had MORE drama... I have an ongoing autoimmune disorder, and I got a call from my doctor about some blood tests on my last doctor's visit. She made some suggestions that I was NOT happy about... She wanted me to double up on my meds. I almost opened my Book of Cuss and was one step from cussing her out. I will not go into it here. (My girls know what's up). I will just be mature, do what she says, and call it a day...

I could not understand how I could get hit with so much crap in one week...

But something else happened last week...

Something remarkable...

Something that I would NEVER have imagined in a MILLION years...

All the drama I went through all week?

This, BY FAR, canceled all of that out... BY FAR!!!!!

Stay tuned for "My Vida Loca! (Part III)