Little red corvette

I am having car troubles. On Friday, my Saab worked just fine, getting me safely back and forth to lovely Stanford University. But on Saturday morning, when I tried to get her in gear to take me to Palmer's soccer game, nothing doing. The clutch pedal was completely flat against the floor, and any attempt to shift gears made a tremendous racket. I just had the clutch worked on by a shop called Svensson Automotive (yes, they specialize in Swedish cars; yes, the owner is of Swedish decent), which is (like any good Swedish company) not open on the weekends. So yesterday was spent getting the car towed from my apartment to Svensson's.

Dave was kind enough to let me borrow his second car until my car is fixed, a red Chevy HR2. And that worked out great this weekend for Palmer and I when we went to a birthday party Saturday night and when I took him to school Monday morning. This morning I also took him to school no problem. Then the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me with a car happened. I drove the car into a parking spot, put the car in park, and then tried to turn the key so that I could turn off the car, planning--obviously--to get out. Nothing doing. The key was not only stuck in the ignition, it was stuck in the on position in the ignition. There was literally nothing I could do but keep driving the car. After proving to Dave that this really was not just a matter of me not knowing how to turn a key, we took it to a shop where they disengaged the wires in order to stop the car. Otherwise I guess the thing would have just kept running all night. It was bizarre.

And as if that was not weird enough, when I got to the Bart station, and put my card into the reader, I got an error message. It was a really old card, but the attendant said that shouldn't matter and told me to try going through the gates with the card. I put my card in, and EVERY SINGLE GATE opened simultaneously. The attendant looked at me with a stunned look on his face, and said he had never seen that happen before. Then he told me to try again. That time everything worked OK, and I was able to get on the train. But it was spooky.

I seriously have not a clue what is going on.

Perhaps an electronics curse was put upon me. Perhaps this is a divine sign I am not supposed to go anywhere. Perhaps it is a sign to stop driving. Or perhaps it was all just a super weird coincidence.

As usual, however, I have found a way to look on the bright side. Because I took the Bart into Berkeley today, and then back home, and then rode the bus from there to my apartment, I had a chance to have a long chat with my neighbor, Beverly. She lives in the apartment right next door, but until we rode the bus home from the Bart together tonight, we had never had a good long face to face chat.

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