Need more sleep...

So this Saturday night is a full moon, yet I swear that all the strange and weird stuff that normally happens on a full moon seemed to happen to me Friday night. I don't know why it was but all in all last night was one of the oddest evenings I have had in a while, and despite it all kind of fun.

To begin with I knew the day was going to suck a good bit because I was having a tooth pulled. It turns out that the tooth that was giving me problems was one that I had cracked a couple of years back (it had been previously filled for a cavity). So I payed the stupidity tax in letting it go so long, by the time I started to feel any pain the tooth was at the state of needing a root canal. Actually, it was at a point where even if a route canal had been done it may not have been successful. So instead of spending thousands of dollars on a potentially ineffective procedure, I chose to spend $44 dollars and have the damn thing pulled. Fortunately it's my last molar, so it's not visible and when I finally have a job that actually pays me some money I will take care of getting a fake tooth in there. But that was just a bit of foreshadowing as to how odd the day would turn.

A good friend of mine from work was having her parents visit for the weekend, they wanted to come up for her birthday. This also coincided with a bachelorette party for another group member. This was a bit of a problem as my friends parents were arriving late Friday night, right in the middle of the party. So seeing that my friend had a bit much on her plate I proposed a simple enough solution. I would pick her up from the party, take her to get her parents, we would drop the parents off at her apartment and then I would take her back to the party and my job would be done. But it's never quite that simple is it.

Plans changed right from the start, the party was still at a house when I was to pick my friend up, and not downtown, which is very close to my place. To make matters worse, my friend only knew how to get to this place from her apartment, on the other side of town. But hey, I have a map, give me cross streets and I can find the place...or so I thought. See it turns out that Edmonton doesn't have the worst traffic grid ever, Minneapolis does. For example, I learned last night that Broadway crosses both Washington street and Washington ave (actually it seems that there are about 20 different Washingtons in the twin cities area!). So when I went to get to the house and I found myself in a rather seedy warehouse district I was a bit concerned. But no matter, found my way, see cell phones are useful and picked my friend up from the party. Next it was off to the airport, which is pretty easy, get on the highway, take a couple of interchanges and we are there. Well, except for the other drivers. See Minneapolis drivers seem to like to do two things while driving down the highways: a)drive nice and fast b)come to near complete stops on highways. Even a 3 year old would be able to tell you that this isn't a good combination. But regardless of the weather, time of day, road conditions, position of the moon, it seems inevitable that you will suddenly find yourself in a position where your speed will drop from 60+ mph to ~20 mph. So obviously driving defensively is a good idea, but sometimes that's not even enough. I don't know what happened but while in the left lane I suddenly saw the SUV two cars ahead of me hit the brakes hard and pull off to the shoulder. Well, as this happened the minivan in front of me hit the brakes hard too, and so did I. However we had been travelling 60+ mph and it doesn't take a math wiz to realize that the loss in time due to reaction speed as you go along a line can add up to hitting the brakes too late. Yup, that's right, I rear-ended the minivan! Fuck, was clearly the first thought through my mind. So the minivan pulled off the road, I pulled off the road, both my friend and I were fine, we were almost at a full stop when we did hit. So I got out of the car to see what the damage was. I don't know what kind of gods I have pleased lately, but I'm pretty sure I have to work my ass off to fill up my karma tank, because the only damage was a few scuffs to the bumper of the minivan! The Jetta was fine, the woman driving didn't care, I was clear! Woohoo! It was only after we got going again did I realize just how lucky I was with the whole thing, after all the Jetta has air bags that could have gone off as well!

So after all that we still made it to the baggage claim before the parents. We picked them up, got everyone in the car and we are off. From here out it should be smooth sailing. Well we get back to the apartment and before we get out of the car I hear "Uh oh..." It seems that my friend left her apartment keys in her car, back at the house where I picked her up, on the other side of town... So it was probably 45 minutes later that we finally were back at her place with her keys and were able to let her parents in. Alright, the bachelorette party has moved downtown, so we need to figure out which bar and get my friend there. Now at this point I started found out that my friend was going to have to drive a couple of the girls back home after the party. Normally that's not a big deal, but she had been really busy lately and was suffering a bit of exhaustion (to the point of getting a few dizzy spells). So I wasn't feeling too good about her finishing off the party and then driving people home until all hours, then having to entertain parents the next day. So I decided to hang out at the bar and when the party was over I could take some of the further out people home and my friend would be spared some of the driving. Well this worked out well, I had two girls to take home, both out towards the airport. Well I got the first one home with no problems, the other one was a different story. Admittedly she had been drinking, but it seems that she only knew how to get to her place from one direction, and even though were on the same highway she didn't know where her exit was. So rather than driving in no clear direction I pulled off the highway and we tried to figure out where to go. Then I saw the headlights in the mirror, yup, it's a cop. So he turns on all his lights, I'm being blinded by the side light reflecting off my mirror. As he walks up I figure I may as well cut things off at the pass and ask "So were is the exit for Portland?" (which was the exit we were looking for). He kindly pointed me on my way and we were off. Shortly there after I the last girl was home and I was off to find my own bed.

I didn't crawl into bed until about 3:30 am, I woke up at 7:00 am to go for a bike ride and then played dodgeball that afternoon. Ah well, that's just the way it goes, I'm always willing to help out a friend. And on the plus side of things the image of the dependable, friendly Canadian is being properly upheld, though it may be amended to be sleep-deprived shortly ;)