Some days, this is my life:
Last April I went home for lunch and saw someone stole my motorcycle. So I had to take time off from work so the police could swing by, verify that the motorcycle was indeed stolen and then have me file a report that basically agreed all around that the bike was gone.
I got pissed off. I was angry, but time passed and eventually I almost forgot that I even used to own a street bike.
This past Tuesday, I get a call at work from the Providence Police telling me that they found my motorcycle but can't tell me anything about it at all except that I have to go down to the station to claim it.
I go down to the station, they check my license, and then tell me that the bike is in Warwick about 20 miles away. I have to go to the Warwick police to find out where it is, and they have no details at all regarding the circumstances of how it was found. Let alone the condition it is in.
A day passes. I can't get out of work because I'm just too busy and I have to go to the station during business hours.
Another day passes and I see that I have a break where I'm waiting for other people to get back to me, so I tell my boss I'm taking a long lunch to straighten out this motorcycle mess. It's 11:30 A.M.
Of course, I don't have a drive-able car right now. My jeep is off the road because I'm going to sell it once it's paid off next month and it just didn't make sense to register it for a month or two - especially when it could use a new pair of breaks, so I don't have a car.
I need to borrow my girlfriend Jen's car - which is at the mall where she's working. The mall is a few blocks away from where I work, so I call her, find out where her car is parked in the parking garage, walk to the mall, find her car in the garage and see that the parking ticket is going to cost me about $20 because it's a business day and the car's been there a few hours.
I need to get her garage ticket validated at a store so it only will cost me a dollar.
So I lock her car back up again and head to borders, where I buy her an extra Valentines day gift - a DVD on beginners Yoga. Hey it looked cool and I thought we could both try it out.
I pay, get the ticket validated, re-find the car, and head down to the Warwick police. But I don't remember how to get there and I left my cell phone at home this morning.
Time to head back to my apartment.
Back at home I get the phone, get the police paperwork, get the address, and pet the cat.
I hop in the car, head towards the highway and while I'm stuck in traffic I see the gas needle is on empty. I have to stop for gas.
I get gas and soon am finally on 95 south.
I find the police station only having to turn around once and wait in line to talk to a big ass tall officer to have him take my paper work to have him hand me back the address for the towing yard and a claim slip for my motorcycle.
I get turned around twice and have to call a guy at the tow yard on my cell phone who sounds really - really - stoned.
The tow yard looks like a cross between Deliverance and a Mad Max movie, but I finally find the office door, talk to the guy who sounded stoned and probably was stoned who tells me I have to pay storage since the date the police dropped off the bike - which was February 11th. The daily fee is 40 dollars a day.
I owe them 160 dollars for my recovered stolen bike.
Fine. I understand everyone needs to make a living - even stoned tow yard workers - who must charge for storage space by the centimeter because honestly, how much space can a motorcycle occupy?
I don't have 160 dollars on me and the tow yard stoned guy is besides himself. He seems to not believe I don't carry hundreds of dollars around with me and must have assumed either I've experienced recovering a stolen vehicle before or any of the officers including the big ass tall police officer I just spoke to a half hour before actually told me what to expect.
I ask to see the motorcycle. I can't. I need to pay before I can even see it.
So I head home. I drive a half hour to my apartment and talk to my land lord who has an office above my apartment and a trailer for his own jeep.
He agrees to help me. I thank him. Agree to meet him at 9 am Friday morning at the tow yard, and then I hop back in Jen's car because she needs to give someone a ride home after work.
Back at the mall, I think that since I'm going to be poor and if I give Jen two valentine's day gifts - one of which amounts to an exercise video - after we both agreed to not get each other anything for VD day, she might be angry and think that I think she's fat.
I go back to Borders to return the DVD.
The cashier doesn't know how to do returns.
She figures it out, but doesn't figure out how to load the return slip in the machine. She figures it out but by now I have 25 angry men behind me - now late themselves for work because I drew the Amazing Kristin in the cashier lottery return line and they waited until the last minute to buy their first VD day gifts.
After I sign a wickedly crumpled return receipt I head for the store Jen manages. I tell her where her car is, quickly relate my two wheeled saga and I get the hell out of the mall.
I head back to work, grab a sandwich to-go from the cafe down stairs in my building, and sit back down at my desk. The clock reads 2:00 P.M.
Some days, this is my life, but not all days, because if every day were like this I am certain I would end up a prison bitch to a burly guy named Neil because honestly,
I would have just stolen a motorcycle to replace my old one
or just shot everyone I came into contact with. Except my girlfriend. I would have let her live... because she smells nice.
�
Juliet Capulet
Casa di Giulietta, 27 Via Cappello.
Verona, Italy
Above is the address of Juliet Capulet ala Romeo and Juliet. If you send a snail mail letter to the above address and make it sound sincere pining about love or love lost or love unrequited, someone will write you back.
It's true. Try it. I think I will because I am sure one day soon I'm going to be bored.
I'll let you know.
Peace out and remember:
lock up your valuables.
