Smashed Android

Hey blog.  It’s like 3am.  I am obviously not going to fall asleep any time soon despite a killer-busy day today which ended at 10:30pm.  I don’t know what PM stands for but it feels like post mortem after the longer days.

So I was laying in bed just now thinking, I should write to you and see how you are doing and see what’s new in your life.  My life has been like some kind of comedic play lately.  I’ll try to give you the brief version of my story:

So I went out with this girl the other day and it went great.  I told her friend (who introduced us) that we went out, it got back to the girl who freaked out that I told her, and it all fell apart.  Wow.  OK.  So fast forward a few days and I was feeling like I wasn’t in control of my life very much what with changes at work, this good date gone bad, involuntarily missing my ex again, etc.  So I strongly considered buying a high-end lens which I never do.  Usually I leave lens purchases up to my work, but they haven’t bought anything in about four years.  (OK, maybe this is the longer version of this story).  So I said, “F**k you, Universe!” and I bought this lens which I’ve been lusting after for years which was hella expensive but which I expended all 130,000 Amex Membership Rewards points on and ended up getting for about half price.  I even sprung for the two day shipping because I’m in control of my own life, damnit!  So my plan was to pick it up from UPS on Tuesday.  But I had to babysit my niece the night it arrived.  Shit.  So the next day, I decided to pick it up from UPS during work, figuring I’d probably use it for work anyway.  I only had about an hour to make the round trip before I had a photo shoot with a doc.  And on the way back from UPS, I had to stop for gas.  But I only had like 26 minutes to get back to that shoot and I was about 28 minutes away.  So I did the Nascar-style pit stop version of stopping for gas.  I was super efficient and fast with my credit card and all of my moves were practiced and perfect.  I opened my phone to write down my mileage per usual (I keep track of it in an Android ap), put my phone on my rear wing as the car was still filling, I went to check my oil, the color was good but the reading seemed weird, maybe it’s low but I have no time, I slammed the hood closed, put the pump away, closed up the fuel cap, hopped in the car, backed out of the gas station and took off like a bandit.  Got back to work with 4 minutes to spare and the doc was 30 minutes late.  Haha.  Oh well.  At least I had a little time to open the box and unpack this killer optic. 

Fast forward a few hours and my friend Andrea called me on my work line and said some guy has my cell phone.  I didn’t even know it was lost.  I was confused…oh crap.  Apparently I left it on my rear wing when I left the gas station.  This guy (Ricardo) watched the entire Nascar-style pit stop and was laughing at me with his friend.  He saw my phone land on the ground as I tore away and he just watched it for a while laying next to the pumps at the gas station.  Then a few cars came along and one of them drove over the phone.  That’s when he decided to get out and look at it to see if it was smashed apart.  Amazingly the phone, crushed now, still kind of worked so he started calling people and Andrea was the first person who answered.  Andrea thought it was me trying to play a joke on her, but after a while she thought I hit my head and had lost my ability to speak clearly and that maybe I needed medical attention (Ricardo spoke very broken english with almost no accent).  But eventually we all got onto the same page and I talked Ricardo into giving me his address so I could go get my phone.  He told me to call him when I got to his apartment, but I told him I couldn’t do that because he was holding my phone.  That part we didn’t work out that well because of the English, but I figured it would be OK once I got there.  I had a late shoot that night, so after shooting Andrea cutting all of her hair off for a charity (with my cool new lens), I drove the hell out to Addison where he lives and found his apartment.  It took me a while because his place was really hard to find and my GPS was sitting on my smashed phone in the guy’s apartment.  I finally arrived in his complex as the police were slowly patrolling his parking lot.  Eventually they moved and I parked, got out, and rang Ricardo’s doorbell.  No answer.  I tried a few dozen more times and realized that his doorbell was broken.  Bonus!  Everyone else’s doorbell in the building was also broken because I tried all of those too except for the one that was missing the button which had the exposed lamp winking at me.  Around that time, some lady in some random window yelled at me to move my car because it was parked in her space, even though none of the spaces are marked and the parking lot was mostly empty at like 9 at night.  I couldn’t even see which window she was yelling from.  So I yelled back to the world that I’d move my car as soon as I picked up a “package from Ricardo”.  I realized how that sounded and started timing how long before the police returned.  Ricardo obviously wasn’t answering, people were yelling at me, he’s probably out at the bars waiting for me to call him from my “extra” cell phone.  I think I know which apartment is his and I think I can get into his apartment because it’s just a quick hop up the railing onto his balcony.  I can see that his sliding door is open and waiting for me to quickly, Nascar-style, slip in, grab my phone and GTFO before the aforemention police arrive.

OK, this is the EPICLY long version of this story, but bear with me.  So earlier, before the aforementioned date, I figured I might need coins for the meter.  She was driving, but I didn’t want to be rude.  But all I had was paper money and the coffee shop at work won’t give you change unless you buy something.  So I bought these Starbucks mints as they are the cheapest item and offer fresh breath as a bonus with my change.  The drawback is it’s an annoyingly loud tin of 30 or so hard candy mints each about the size of a thick dime.  So now, I’m sitting in my car, looking at that open sliding glass door when all of a sudden, someone goes to that very same sliding glass door and closes the blinds.  What the hell is Ricardo doing?  Is he now trying to act like he’s not home so I’ll go away?  So I get out of the car, not knowing what to do, and I hear these annoying mints jingling in the tin mocking me with their original purpose and latent uselessness.  So I open it up and start chucking the mints at this guy’s kitchen window.  I miss the first 10 times or so because I’m going for impact and not accuracy, but it doesn’t matter because I’ve got like 20 more.  There are mints all over the lawn of this apartment building now.  So I slow down and start connecting with his kitchen window and I throw as often as possible so that hopefully the guy will recognize the man-made pattern and realize it’s not a tree branch and that I’m standing the hell outside.  I do this for about 15 more mints but no joy.  Mother eff.  I’d better leave five mints left for some as-yet unforseen emergency which is sure to come.

So I put the tin back into my pocket and just start knocking on the security door as loudly as possible.  I figure I’ll knock until SOMEONE comes out or someone calls the cops.  Either way, I Will Not Be Ignored.  It takes about 10 minutes!! of bloody-knuckle knocking.  I even start knocking on the glass next to the security door with the mints which makes this high-pitched monstrously loud sound which I hope someone will respond to.  Originally, I was going to give Ricardo $20 for giving me my phone back, but as the time was wearing thin, I was reducing the amount down in $5 increments for each failed attempt to get his attention and currently he was at negative $205.  I start to think that I made this trip for nothing and that my phone is now being used to make long distance calls to every country on the globe before the guy finally comes out all surprised and “oh hey!”  He is actually super nice (with the exception of letting my phone get run over).  I tell him his doorbell is broken and he says, “Oh, it is?”  So I credit him the -$205 and give him the full $20 as originally planned, get my smashed phone back, GPS my way to some hot dog place, break my man-diet and get some gyros with stinky onions and cucumber sauce.