Last night was planned to be a great night. I bought tickets to take the Pretty Girl to see Pippin at the 5th Ave theatre. Before hand we both wanted to eat at the highly recommended Palace Kitchen.I woke up early that day and gave my car a much needed wash. Given traffic in Seattle can be as accommodating as your average rodeo bull I thought I'd leave early from Renton to pick her up from work. I arrived early and sat in my car in front of her office awaiting her to get off work. After a short wait she got in and we were going to be off to enjoy a good evening.
Or so I thought. I turned the key and kept hearing a clicking noise. Damn I thought. I heard the teeth of the starter hit the flywheel so I figured it was the starter. I was still getting power, but it just wouldn't kick over. Shit this couldn't have happened at home.
I was pissed. My warranty on my car expired a month ago as well as my road side assistance plan. This was going to be a much more expensive evening than I had imagined. The Pretty Girl was trying to cheer me up given the funk I was in, but I couldn't get over the horrendous timing of this incident.
I called a towing company and dreaded the thought of the cost of the tow. The driver showed up, rather quickly I might add, and asked me to turn it over. He stood there and thought about it, then got a big smile on his face. It was obvious to me he hadn't seen a dentist since Ghostbusters was playing in theatres.
He said it may not be the starter so the man with a British sense of dental care gave me a jump. Walla my car was functional. What was going to cost me $200 ended up costing me $60 not including the big fat tip I gave him.
The Pretty Girl and I got into the car and realized time was really short for dinner, plus I didn't want to turn the car off so I could give the battery time to charge. Instead of having a great dinner at the Palace Kitchen we decided fast food was probably the best choice. We pull through the drive thru at the McDonald's across from the Space Needle and ate in their parking lot all the while the engine was running.
After the cheap dinner we headed to the 5th Ave and watched the musical/comedy Pippin. For those of you unfamiliar it's loosely based on the life of Charlemagne's first born son Pippin and chronicles his story of self discovery. The play starts off with an aggressive, almost demonic, set of Players singing songs promising how we're going to love the show they are about to perform. They cast the light on an audience member, aka Pippin, who goes up on stage and after a bit of magic disappears. The rest of the story we watch him whine about how he's struggling to find something important to do with his life while the self obsessed Players guide and sometimes berate him as well as annoy me.
The music was just not good. I don't know any other way to describe it other than completely forgettable. The comedy was amusing to most of the audience, especially to a couple of ladies sitting behind us. I may have found it funny if I hadn't read or seen the jokes a dozen times before. The play tried to be edgy with it's humor and themes and I imagine back when it was written it was. It sure isn't now; however I've read many a review that would disagree. Given the play wasn't the best I've seen I still enjoyed being in the 5th Ave theatre.
So the night didn't go as planned, but I got to dress up and at least try and show the Pretty Girl a good time. Overall I think I succeeded.
I took my car into a shop today to see if there was anything out of the ordinary that was draining my battery. As luck would have it they found nothing.
"The only difference between McDonald's customers and the dinner crowd is that the latter dine on tablecloths. The powerful are as likely to be as portly as the plebes." - Suzanne Fields
1 comment:
That sounds exactly like something that would happen to me, except that when I got out of the car to talk to the tow guy, a car would rapidly come by and drive straight through a mud puddle.
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