Do You Hear What I Hear?

The holidays are upon us and fellow humankind is stressed out!  Perhaps coupled by the unemployment situation in the country, good cheer seems to be hard to come by.  My roommate Emily S and I devised a plan yesterday morning for me to jump her car.  In order to do that, however, I was first going to have to shovel my car out.  Judging by the constant murmur of spinning tires that has serenaded our apartment for the last 4 days, we imagined this could take a while.  We trudged out each with our respective shovels to get to work on our respective cars.  The street was blocked anyway for the time being by our neighbors who were also jumping each other.  All was well until traffic started to back up down the street, horns started blaring, and tensions mounted.  Thank goodness the backed up traffic got back in their cars before any kind of fight went down, but our southern neighbors (the crackhouse, if you remember) can intimidate fo sho. 

I shoveled and scraped away--a good 30 minutes at least--when suddenly Emily drove up beside me saying the neighbors had gotten her out and to hop in.  I threw the shovel and scraper into my car and hopped in hers to begin our errands while her car battery charged up.  At the end of our block I had the dawning realization that I'd left my car running!  I jumped back out of Emily's car and ran back and sure enough, the car was running, and all the doors were locked. 

I had a spare key in the apartment, but no key to the apartment--it was in the car.  Emily couldn't stop driving or her battery would die.  Thankfully, as usually happens in cases such as these, my landlords were home to bail me out.  Got the key, ran back, was stopped by my scary southside neighbor offering to help push my car out.  Maybe he's not so scary after all.  Got the door open, turned off the car, and headed off with Emily to Michaels craft store for last minute supplies.

As Emily pulled up to Michaels to drop me off, the car opposite us tapped a pedestrian crossing the street.  When the pedestrian stood there looking incredulously at the driver, the driver got out and got all up in this guy's face for standing in front of his f-ing car.  When the guy replied, "you hit me!" The driver pushed the pedestrian's chest.  I scurried inside the CRAFT STORE and asked the first person I saw if they had any kind of security.  Why Michaels would have security, I'm not sure, but it didn't really occur to me in the moment.  The store clerk said he would call Bill.  "Bill to the front.  Bill to the front."  By the time Bill got up to the front, the pedestrian and driver were gone, and it was probably a good thing because Bill was about 75 years old.

I'm really feeling the Christmas cheer.  Peace on earth.  Goodwill towards men.