Thursday, January 1, 2009

The Wall Moved, I Swear.

Ok, so... I know that I'm probably supposed to be writing something about this past year, or my resolutions, or even some basic reflection, but I seem to have more important things to do (it could be true!). I have some good news, and an embarrasing and unfortunate tale. I'll start with the good news.
I got a job!!! And by that I mean, I have been given an unofficial offer for a position pending reference checks etc. Everybody cheer with me now... YAY :D Ok, now as I'm sure that you are all simply dying to know what my new position entails, let me oblige. I'll be with the organization that I've been temping at, so I have a couple weeks of it to know what I'm getting into. Basically, they're a medical journal focused on orthopedics and physical therapy (much more Josh than me, but whatever...). It's non-profit (which I love) and very small (I'll be working in an office with three other people). I'll mostly be doing the random things around the office (stuffing envelopes, verifying subscription lists, updating subscriber information...) as well as basic copy-editing. I'm not necessarily swooning for the job itself, but as a whole, it's a really great opportunity. The people are really nice. It's a fairly relaxed atmosphere. I'll be on salary (yay for paid vacations ;))... And, as an added bonus, I'll never have to wear this again...
From Work
I mean, I'm all about safety and all, but I was never very pumped about that hard hat and those safety glasses ;)
Ok, that's my good news. Now, I need to share with you a story that I am in no way proud of. The only reason this tale is even seeing the light of the blogosphere is because I've found that when I am ashamed of something, it sometimes helps to tell the story to friends. That, and because I don't have to be there to see your reaction in person. Now then, let's start with a little background... Our house on base has a rather small single-car garage. Since my car is newer (and by newer, I mean we bought it brand new 8 months ago), I was designated as the garage-parker. I've a pretty confident garage parker for a while now, so I had no qualms with this set-up. In fact, shortly after we moved here, I mentioned to Josh that he seemed to take the garage parking much slower than I did. His graceful response was that not only did he not have a lot of practice, but also, my car doesn't have collapsable side mirrors like most do, so if he ever accidentally caught one of the edges of the garage, my mirror would be toast. With a nod from me, that was the end of that conversation. I would like to mention here that one of the things that makes it a tight fit is that our trash can lives in the corner right next to the garage, so it typically invades the garage door space by two or three inches. Moving on... It was extremely windy here today (I think Josh said it got up to 50 mph). There was enough wind to move a large trash can. So as I'm pulling into the driveway after work, I noticed that our trash can was much further away from the wall (i.e. taking up much more garage door space) than normal. I could see that it would be a really really tight squeeze to get my car in without hitting either the trash can on one side or the wall on the other, but I was confident. I knew that I could squeeze past without needing to get out to move the trash can. So I went for it. I totally cleared that trash can. The wall, however, jumped out and bit my car. Remember that whole non-collapsable mirror thing. Yeah... I'm now missing my passenger side mirror. The end.
Needless to say, it was not a pleasant night in our little home. I am ashamed. I suppose it's a good thing that I have a job so that I can pay for things like a new mirror for my car :/ 
And now, I must away to bed because I'm getting that feeling like I stopped making sense somewhere around "Ok, so...". Before I go, though, I'd like to make note of the fact that this would be an excellent time to tell me about some of your past accidents which caused major damage. Maybe the time you flooded your parents house when you were there visiting for a week and trying to fix a leak, or the time you broke the spoiler off of your dad's car trying to put a decal on his back window... You've all done that too... right?

7 comments:

Frizzy said...

COngrats on the job. Congrats on the mirror. We all have to do something like that sooner or later. For you it's sooner I guess. My mom backed into the garage door twice before it was completely open when I was in HS. She also backed into 2 of my boyfriends cars while I was in HS. You would think she would have learned to look in her rearview mirror after the first or second crunch right? Nope! It took her 4 times to figure it out. That or we all just learned not to park behind her. LOL! Happy New Year~

Julie said...

Congrats on the job. I am sure that is a relief! Happy New Year.

Alicia @ Oh2122 said...

Yay job! Boo wall.

I think your wall may be related to my guardrail. The truly evil part is that I had a spotless driving record before yesterday. 0 Points! 1 meter expiration ticket and 1 warning in 14 1/2 YEARS!

Cupcakes. Oh, well. It's all up from here!

I Love Purple More Than You said...

Congratulations on your job! But you did look super cute in the hard hat.

What, no picture of the car post-mirror-removal? I did manage to take a turn too narrow at a gas station, pulling away from the gas pump and dented and scratched the entire side of my car with one of those iron poles. Had to have the dents removed and the entire side of the car had to be repainted.

Feel better now? :)

Happy New Year!

Lula! said...

Well hooray for the job!!! So happy for you! I broke out my Owl Towel when I put the Christmas stuff away and thought of you.

I can relate to your mirror story. Once I was speeding through my old neighborhood back home and I heard what I thought was gunfire. I literally ducked...DUCKED while driving. Then hit the brake and discovered that what I thought was gunfire was me actually hitting a neighbor's mailbox.

The mailbox survived. The mirror hung by a thread for a few days.

Embarrassing.

Bless your little heart.

Lula! said...

p.s. LOVING your new blog look, Lauren.

Ronnica said...

Congrats on the job! It sounds a lot like mine, except what our companies do are two entirely different things.

I once hit our trashcan as I was backing out of the driveway at a good speed. I had forgotten that it was trash day! Other than that, I smashed up the front end of my mom's year-old car in a wreck that she's only recently gotten over (that was 9 years ago) though it wasn't even my fault. And the biggest one: my roommate and I flooded our apartment when the something on the stove caught fire, setting off the sprinklers.