Hey man, can I borrow your car? I overslept my ride and mine's at the train station

Karma works in funny ways...

"Hey, hey"

"Yes, John Stamos?"

"That was Adele with 'Rolling in the Deep.'"

"I don't get what that means. It's your turn to shoot this basketball into this giant Golden Retriever's mouth over here."

"8:22 on this sunny Wednesday and good morning to you out there, it's going to be a hot one but not nearly as hot as this weekend..."

"What are you talking about? We're literally inside of a whale right now playing Dogsketball. Why the hell is it so windy in here?"

It is at that point I snapped awake to the purring jet engine that is my room fan, and the loud, mostly unintelligible mix of static, DJ chatter and Sweet Caroline belting out of my little white alarm clock.

I scrambled to turn it off. 8:25am. The day prior, I had coordinated with a friend (Adam) from the (soon to be) ex-office who lives nearby enough to carpool. That way, I could leave my car at the train station by work and take the train directly home from the city. He was awesome enough to oblige, and said he'd be at my house at...

...8am.

Shit. Ok, check the phone. 4 Missed Calls/1 Text

Text from Work Adam - 7:55am:

I'm in ur living room, don't know which bedroom is urs and ur unresponsive. Sorry man, gotta go.

Shit. No car, no carpool. And work is a half hour drive (and a $40 cab ride away). Could be better, but hey, could always be worse. Keep it positive. I call Adam and apologize profusely for oversleeping. And, in a fit of desperation, asked my roommate to borrow his car. He was awesome enough to oblige.

2 Cars 1 Chris...

I pull up to the office at around 9:30am, immediately trying to figure out how I'm going to get two cars home. It's just not going to happen. Now here's some quick nuggets of info worth chewing on:

The original plan of attack was this:

1. Enter Adam's vehicle at 8am
2. Have a discussion about hot women, life, and some injury or another that one of us has sustained (active lifestyle, ladies)
3. Arrive at Syosset train station around 8:45-9:00am depending on traffic (Rubbernecking rant to follow soon).
4. Procure my vehicle and proceed to work by 8:55-9:10 depending on traffic
5. Live happily ever after.

Instead, the Entrepreneur oversleep-schedule made the plan look something like this:

1. Play dogsketball with John Stamos inside of a dream whale from October to 8:22am
2. Wake up feeling like an absolutely inconveniencing idiot
3. Apologize, then further inconvenience people around you by borrowing vehicles like an autoless drug addict
4. Arrive to work at 9:30am.
5. Proceed to work while figuring out how to grab your car.

Here's where Karma comes into play: without taking up too much of your precious reading time (be sure to read at an angle where you can see people approaching out of your peripheral, if your back is directly to your boss, it always helps to start a garbage-can fire in another room as a distraction).

12:50am train home to Long Beach the night prior...

"Tickets, please."

(Deliriously tired, and having just sprinted to catch the train, I reach into my left pocket, the money pocket, and pull out $8.75 - price of a ticket? $8.25, on board price? Upwards of $20.00).

"Sorry this is all I have."

"All right, I'll take the $8.00 and I'm going to have to give you a summons  for the rest then."

"I'm sorry, it's late, I had to sprint to make this train. I obviously have the money to pay for the face value of a ticket, there's no one on this train, no one's being inconvenienced, can I pay you the ticket price and you let it slide?"

"Sorry, it's standard practice."

...Son of a bitch. 

And then I did it. I lied. In front of God and country I lied to that train conductor who was just doing his job. I admit it.

Playing to the "it's 1:05am, he probably does not want to deal with this as much as I do" card, I tried to make his decision an easier one...

"You know what, man? I can't find my wallet anywhere."

"Oh, really?"

"I think I lost it while I was sprinting to catch this train, I don't know if you saw me on the ground over there."

"Huh. Well ok, do you have ID then?"

"Wait, what?"

"Huh? Oh right, the wallet."

"Yeah..."

"All right, wait here I'll be right back."

*Ding* The next stop is...Long Beach

He never came back. Free train ride....

But hang on, everyone! I'm about to use a knowledge cannon to siege your mind. Nothing in life is free. It always has some price. One you can see, and one you can't. The one you can see is generally in dollars, or wompum, or whatever items your culture uses to assign value to something. The other, is in things like stress, emotional turmoil, and your spouse cheating on you. Everything on this planet is assigned a price, and it will be paid.

12:00pm on the current day...

"Yo, Adam."

"What's up man?"

"Maybe we could try this carpool thing again tomorrow, and I won't suck at it."

"Yeah defi--oh wait, you know what dude? I'm not coming in at all the rest of this week."

Okay, so I'm going to need another way to get my car, or I will be without it (barring a very out of the way car ride for someone) for quite some time. Then it kicks in, that business nag in the back of my head:

"Why don't you do some excel spread sheets, Chris? Calm down for a bit. Let the smooth, simple array of endless white boxes pierce your eyes...take your mind off things."

"That's it, great. Now check out some stuff for your clients, make sure you hit your tweet and facebook post quota for the day. Excellent. I'm getting the hang of this. Now go ahead and write a procedure checklist on something. Another bright white screen to stare at for an hour or so. Stare at it until you feel the calm, soothing headache that is most likely the result of a tumor developing in your frontal lobe. Great, stuff Chris. Wonderful work."

Client email comes in:

Chris,

Can you please call this woman? I want to arrange something to work her into our campaign.

*Phone number.*

Regards,

Your best client


I'm on it.

Work email comes in:


Chris, 


Can you do something that will distract you from other things you are doing?


Sincerely, 
Sincerely.


I'm on it.

"Hey, Chris."

"Yeah John."

Meet John. He's best described a tornado. He's also my life coach. My tornado coach.

"I don't want food permits, you can give that to someone else. Give it to Kiki, what does she even do anyway?"

"Ok, no problem."

"Isn't it wild how quickly we're figuring out how little we need you?"

John says everything flatly, and with a smirk. He's always joking, but to anyone even remotely sensitive, he comes off as brutal. I happen to love our back and forths.

"Yeah, you know what? Can you help me with something?"

"What is it?"

"Can you run me to my car at the train station?"

"Yeah sure. What time is it?"

"3:00."

"Sure, I leave at 4:00 for the doctor anyway."

"Crabs again?"

"No, no! My day of crabs is long over. What a nightmare!! You get it from the one you least expect! ALWAYS remember that!"

Life Coach advice #79: You always get crabs from the one you least expect. 

We pull up to the train station at 4pm. Note that time.

"Good luck with the car, Mr. Forbes CEO."
"Thanks man, I really appreciate it."
"If you need anything give me a call."


I walk up to my car. Something is out of place on the bumper. Two deep scratches. Son of a bee-sting. That's a bumtastic shucker right there. Hop in my car, fire it up. Mirrors, check. Emergency brake, check. A/C on ---WHOA that's actually a fireplace now, A/C off. Windows down, check. Giant piece of paper blocking my view out the windshield, check.

And there it was. Cue the music when they reveal the killer.

For the violation parking a vehicle in the Town of Oyster Bay without a visible permit, A summons in the amount of $105.00 and a mandatory court appearance on August 31, 2011. Time of issue: 1:07pm. Here's the "I just received a damn ticket reaction list"

• Look at your watch.
• Regardless of the time, look around as if the ticket was just written and the guy is nearby.
• As if when you find him you're going to approach him and he's going to say "Oh, hey man, sorry for the misunderstanding." And takes the ticket back, promptly feeding it right back into the machine and out comes buy-one get-one coupons for Meow Mix. "On your way now, friend!" He says, as you clap and cheer, and then he whistles and his horse comes trotting up, and he rides off shouting, "Always pay your taxes!"
• Immediately take pictures with your cell phone as if this is the scene of a murder. Be sure to get the undercarriage of the car, this might prove you still did not have a permit.
• Look around furiously for a sign that says you can't park here without a permit
• Upon locating the sign two spots down from your car, begin to crop all of the photos that show the giant sign
• Tell yourself "Well at least I don't have to pay it until August." 

Recap: I received the summons at 1:07pm. The original plan had me there at 8:55-9:10am depending on traffic. My summons  on the Long Beach train would have been issued at around, you pieced that together already? Look at you go. 1:07am. Karma, my friends. You pay now, or you pay later. Be honest, I know I'll be cutting checks to the LIRR like it's a contest to meet Justin Bieber going forward.

I parked the car at the office, drove my roommates car home, and invited my step brother over as a distraction from the day's events. My time spent with him? Working out a business plan. Oh, we're in it to win it now. 

I asked him if he'd be interested in staying over and carpooling the next day.  He was awesome enough to oblige. 

Fortune cookie: Bad days require a good attitude and better friends. And if that doesn't work, meth up and try again tomorrow.

Days left at the old job: 11

Hours of sleep last night: 4.5

Daily Stats

Cups of coffee: 3

Spreadsheets worked on: 7

Times John said something hurtful: 9

Times John said something honest: 9