Bad Moon Rising: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Poverty

"You know the kind of guy who does nothing but bad things and then wonders why his life sucks? Well, that was me: every time something good happened to me, something bad was always waitin' around the corner. Karma. That's when I realized I had to change. So, I made a list of everything bad I've ever done, and one by one I'm gonna make up for all my mistakes. I'm just tryin' to be a better person. My name is Del."

Karma is a dirty dirty whore.

We all know the car story. I hate to carry on about this but it still smells. It now smells like your old aunt who has thrown in the towel when it comes to personal hygiene and instead just takes a perfume bath every morning. The old and the delusional think this is a perfectly passable masking agent...but we know better. It creates a super funk. For old people it turns into a drugstore perfume & old lady BO* comet tail that can be smelt well after they've left the room. For a car it turns into a super funk that will not disappear no matter how fast you drive with all four windows down. My other plan of attack was to take Pico all the way home from Applepan and hit every light possible so the car would carry that scent. The Pan aroma got dominated the second the bag was removed from the piss mobile.

Back to Toyota...."Oh what a feeling!"

Jorge (luckily Henry Molina wasn't there) explained that they'd be calling in their "expert" cleaner. She is someone they bring in when they need a trade in car cleaned. She, allegedly, has the magic touch for making cars smell brand new. The question you have to ask yourself is "Why the fuck wasn't she called in the 1st place?". Actually don't bother asking yourself it. I asked Toyota that question and they didn't have an answer...so why would you.

Jorge was kind enough to have a "sweet" Toyota rental ready for me this time. Lucky me. As I headed to my temporary wheels Jorge said "Enjoy the Scion. You might end up liking it so much you'll want to buy it!". He either had amazing faith in the power of the Scion or really liked fucking with me. My money's on the latter. I responded with a Costanza-esque "FUNNY GUY!" and sped off...awkwardly in my weird box of car.

So the promise of "The Cleaner"** taking care of the car today had me feeling pretty good. That was till my cell phone rang. It was an 888 number. I'd usually just hit the ignore button and carry on with whatever mindless work nonsense I was dealing with but for some reason today I decided to answer and the call went like this:

Del: "This is Del..."***
Caller: Good morning Sir, this is Citibank. I'm sorry to bother you but can I ask you a question.
D: Shoot
Citi: Are you planning many trips in the near future
(hearing that can never be a good sign...especially w/ zero trips on the horizon)
D: Um no...
C: Could you log into your my.citi and verify some charges.
D: Grrrrrrrrrreat. Sure. (logs in) FUCK my checking is at zero!
C: Soooo sir...are you disputing the activity of late.
D: Well I don't think I'm planning any trips to Oklahoma City or Tulsa..so yeah.

From there I got transferred to an outsourced operator who I could not understand. I'm sure my patience was less than normal as when you have zero dollars in your checking account having language issues is just about the last thing you want to deal with:

Outsourced Citi: Sir where were you when you lost your card..
Del: Just to be clear my card is not lost, I'm holding it in my hand as we speak. I'm calling to fraud alert numerous charges.
Outsourced Citi: Very good. OK, so when you lost your card...
Del(poor man's rage): Please just give your main # and I'll call back. I know you're trying but I can not understand you and you clearly can't understand me.
Outsourced Citi: Is there anything else I can do for you today?

Throughout this phone call I realized that no matter what I said to this guy he was going to stick to the script laid out for him. That was more annoying than the language barrier. So that has been the last 24 hours of my life. To recap: I'm broke and driving a rental car. It seems like small potatoes compared to the fires that have ravaged California...but still, very awful luck****

The question that needs to be asked is why is this happening? Is karma finally catching up to past transgressions? I've always thought of myself as a fairly decent person.

I watched Davey and Goliath as a kid for Christ's sake.*****

Sure I didn't have a talking dog to stick my nose in my mistakes whenever I fucked up or was contemplating something evil but I wasn't a monster. When will Lady Karma pull back on the throttle? Please tell what to do you bitter bitter whore.

Do I need to pull an Earl and make a list?

As a kid:

1. I broke my brother's foot as a result of our fighting at the beach when we were in 8Th grade. I then kicked sand in his face when he said he was too hurt to walk w/ me to the arcade.******
   
2. I put a smoke bomb in my neighbor's house via an external air duct...which spread the rotten egg smelling smoke through their entire house via the central air.
3. A neighbor paid me to walk their dog when I was a kid. I'd purposely walk it near deer droppings if I saw them because the dog would roll in it and I thought this was hilarious.
4. I plagiarized Shel Silverstein

As a jackass teenager:

1. I pulled a fire alarm to cock block my house mate from hooking up w/ a girl we'd both been fighting for over the course of a night. In my defense he bribed her w/ some sweet sweet candy she was addicted to. I had no recourse.
2. When a friend passed out I got Nair from a girl and put it on his eyebrows. Worse though he had a uni brow and I left the uni connector Nair free. He ended up w/ a Hitler eyebrow.
3. I made out with a girl at a bar after i puked. I knew i puked. She didn't.
   
4. An old trusting religion professor told everyone to leave their finals papers in his staff mailbox. I went into the mail room the day before the due date and grabbed two for me and my friend. (Easiest A ever. I toasted many a shot in Amhir Blah Blahs honor that night. )
   

As a stunted adult:

1. I side swiped a parked car and left the scene. The damage was far worse on my car...but still.
   

Future Bad deeds:

1. Blowing up the Toyota dealership. (so karma won't be too mad I'll evacuate the building...sans Henry Molina)
   

Wow, that's less than 10! Hardly the Satan level that karma is responding at. That said moving forward I'm going to be a a friggin saint. Let's see if that helps.

Asterisk notes:

* Old Lady BO: When i was a kid my dad's old senile alcoholic lesbian aunt lived in our basement. Of course her name was "Aunt Helen" (aren't they all). She invented the over abundant perfume trick. This led to us taking her blanket, which we cleverly named "the aunt helen blanket, and throwing it on unsuspecting guests. If you were really lucky and caught them completely off guard you'd try for the blanket in the mouth score. It was a long shot but well worth it. "Taste the Helen!" I suppose with that story you can go ahead and add one more evil deed to my list.

**The Cleaner: Did anyone else conjure up a picture of Harvey Keital in Pulp Fiction..or to a lesser extent "Le Femme Nikita"?

***"This is Del...": This is the ultra douchey way I answer my phone when I don't recognize a number.

**** awful luck: I realize in the grand scheme of things these are merely speed bumps. Thanks in advance for indulging me.

*****Christ's sake: When again will I get to take the Lord's name in vain AND reference a creepy ass Saturday morning claymation parable. Probably never. I had to do it. To think, D&G are only ranked 4th! all time.

****** Brother's broken foot: A truly great jackass story that will require its own blog.

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Now playing: Leonard Cohen - I'm Your Man