Hot, Flat and Crowded

Friday night, we drove all over San Francisco in an unintentional neighborhood tour which included Potrero Hill (best view of the city, hands down) and the Richmond. We had dinner at a very warm yet delicious Burmese restaurant and played Rock Band at a friend's house afterward. I think it is safe to say it is no less than tragic that my talent as a drummer has gone heretofore unappreciated.

In an unrelated story, Saturday morning the car had a flat tire.

No big deal, right? You put on the spare and drive to get a new tire. Unless you have no jack or tire iron with which to put said spare on said car in said foul mood at 8 fricking am on a Saturday.

Surely one of the upsides of living in a neighborhood with more auto repair shops than human or animal residents is that this should be relatively painless to resolve. The first place I went into would have been more than happy to help but was going to charge me $65 just to put the spare on. Several other places just plain weren't helpful, with varying degrees of nastiness, indifference and bad breath.

Finally, I found a friendly old man who may or may not have actually worked at the shop he was sitting near and was willing to let me walk away with pretty much anything in the shop I could find without even asking me for my name, much less an ID or something that would guarantee its safe return. This man was my new best friend.

We rummaged around the shop and found a tire iron that looked like it would serve but had a hard time finding a small portable jack that I could take with me. All that they had, other than the built-in hydraulic lifts, were these rolling jacks that looked like small lawnmovers with a single broom handle sticking out. It was portable in the sense that it was on wheels, but it was very heavy and pulling it made a noise like dragging metal filing cabinets wrapped in metal chains across concrete, which isn't too far from what I was in fact doing. A little short on alternatives, I steeled myself for nasty looks and began dragging this much-needed tool towards home, just one ear-splitting block away.

As I rounded the corner and started the last half block down Clementina Street, I had a moment of horror, shame, pride and aural sensory overload all mixed together: this Saturday morning, for these brief but excruciating moments, I was the Clementina Show. I savored it. And then I said the loudest silent prayer I could muster that I am never, ever, ever in that position again.

What I didn't do on Saturday afternoon was go check out the Red Bull soapbox derby event, but the final count was that 75,000 people had attended. Friends, this park is not that big. And that's a lot of people. But I am willing to bet that none of them are as good at drums on Rock Band as I am.