Tonight, I went and stood in the pouring rain to watch one of my underage drinking establishments go up in flames. The Golden Spike is about two blocks from my current house. Last year, I would go drunk to watch karaoke and occassionally get slipped a sip or two from friends as we watched. It has been closed for a little under a year. The owner was trying to sell the building so that he could focus on his other two bars. One of which gets posted about quite frequently because it is my second home. I know the owner and I would trust him not to set fire to his own establishment. I want to say that it might have been connected to the lightning or maybe it was just the electricity. The walls were lined with carpet and it was an old building. Anyhow, the place was billowing smoke when my friend IMed me to tell me that it was on fire. My roommates and I went running over to see this magnificent fire that had started anywhere from half an hour to an hour earlier. We saw the fire progress from the front of the roof all the way back. It did not take long for the fire to spread even in the pouring rain. The firemen were concentrating on keeping the fire off of the house that was less than fifteen feet away. From what I could tell driving by, they did a pretty good job of that job. The roof fell in sometime between me feeling too soaked to continue watching and when I drove by about 30 minutes later. I have never seen a building burn before. I have viewed the ruins, but never the actual fire. It was so big.
After leaving the fire, I went over to a barbeque for the scholarship workers and interns of the auditorium. Lots of conversation. Fun times. That was not the bad part. I get out to my car to go home to complete the last homework that I have to do of my college career.
I get into my car and put it into reverse. I start down the driveway. Realizing that I am not going to make it down the steep driveway, I try to put my car into drive. Nothing. I put it into park. Then I try to put it into drive again. Nothing. I put my car in park and then try reverse again. Nothing. I storm back into my boss's house and yell that my transmission fell out. I guess this is not what actually happened. So we try to figure out what is wrong. Nothing. I know nothing about cars, so I was no help. So I call my parents and try to tell my mother what is wrong. My father (who knows about cars) is asleep. I talk to her. I get frustrated. I hang up and decide nothing. We try some other stuff. I call her back and tell her that we need to get it towed because it is in the middle of the driveway. She gets frustrated and does not understand that it will not go into any gear. We hang up. We try some other stuff. Then I call her back and she wakes up my father. Talking to her is doing neither of us any good.
My father is the type of person that will be angry with you for being ignorant even if it isn't your fault. So he is almost yelling at me saying that it is my fault. This makes me angry. He blames me for stuff that is not really my fault. Even though this might actually be my fault. I am not gentle with my car. When pulling out of my driveway, I will often just throw it into drive without coming to a complete stop. This never really bothered me because I knew what I was doing. Anyone riding with me would think that I was being really jerky with the car. I made sure that I wasn't accelerating. I thought that the car could handle it. Anyway, my father is telling me to look at stuff that I have no idea what it looks like or where it is.
Randy and I eventually decide that he must be talking about this little part that looks like it is not working right. So we tinker. And tinkering works. We get it to go into another gear manually. Presto, we get reverse. Then we get neutral. We push it into the grass. Then we accidentally put it into drive. So we get it farther in the grass. At this point, the car is not wanting to go back into park, so we tinker more.
Fuck this car. I probably deserved it. And this of all nights. I was going to go drinking. Nope. Still got some in but not in the fashion of drunk week. I'll really have to step it up tomorrow. I was just feeling shitty all day anyway. What a lousy fucking day with all the rain and storms and me not enjoying them.