slacking off is only fun if you're supposed to be doing something else

as someone who abhors or at the very least really really dislikes being bored and would rather find something else to do when i'm supposed to be doing things like work, today had to have been the absolute most difficult day for me since i've unplanted myself from the postbellum south and meandered west to the surf and sand of los angeles. actually, i used to rather find something else to do when i'm supposed to be doing work, but now that work is the coolest ever, i suppose i can't really say that anymore.

anyway, it started yesterday. well, it started in september. did you know that when you become the owner of a car, you only have a certain amount of time to register it under your name before you have to pay penalty fees? and when you arrive in california, you only have a certain amount of time to register it under your name before you have to pay penalty fees? both of these times have seemingly come and gone unnoticed. so now i'm delinquent. not a delinquent, but delinquent just the same.

emissions are a funny thing. when the guy at the quick lube joint down the street tells you that your car failed the emissions test, you feel like a parent who's just been told by a teacher that your kid is the dumb kid in class just before an exit exam or some other test that'll make your kid get held back if he doesn't pass.

i'm supposed to register my car tomorrow afternoon. so this morning i woke up early and was at a mechanic at 730. not wanting to get completely taken for a sucker, i looked up the OBDII fault codes that made me have to get up an hour earlier than usual: P0133 - O2 Sensor Slow Response and P0171 System Too Lean. easy enough. my Mass Air Flow sensor is contaminated and i need a new one. i tell this to the mechanic and he tells me it'll be $65 to run a diagnostics test (which of course yields system error codes P0133 and P0171). fine, whatever. let's get this baby fixed up so i can go to work. what? you have to replace 2 sensors? they're in simi valley? it'll take 2 hours for it to get here? damn. the actual time spent working on the car is gonna be another hour and a half? double damn. it's gonna be $480? you're killin me Smalls. fine, i'm gonna go walk around. give me a call when you're done.

like the heading says, slacking off is only fun if you're doing something else instead of doing what you're supposed to be doing. you'd think it'd be easier to kill four hours...and actually it was. i walked about a mile to a nearby strip mall. time was spent trying to anticipate the number of striking workers outside of the supermarket (which i grossly understimated at 8, when there was actually 22), going aisle by aisle through Sav-On (think Big Lots version of Eckerd) looking at weird products i've never had to buy (volcanic pumice stones and epsom salts for nasty feet) and reading every single greeting card. once i was bored out of my mind, i realized that barnes & noble had opened, so i went there for the rest of the time (about two hours).

now two hours in a barnes & noble to me seems like two hours in a library without any reason to be there. i'm a guy. a straight guy. and straight guys only go out and buy things if they need them, and made a special trip to buy said things. straight guys don't browse. but i found a book that i highly recommend someone buy for me as a thank you for staying at my place sometime this summer. a bunch of people are coming, so i figure i have a pretty decent chance of getting it. anyway, the book was "1001 movies you have to see"...or something like that. it totally kicked every "10 greatest movies" or "100 greatest movies" book's ass. i looked at every page, read every blurb on every movie, skimmed the movies that i've seen, took mental notes on those i hadn't seen but wanted to, and was slightly discomforted knowing that i've seen waaaaay to many movies.

ring ring! my car's done. hey, how much if i bring cash? oh, um...$400'll work. (<---- lets me know i'm a sucker but at the same time not as big a sucker as i was if i had paid the original $480, so that's something, right?)

i got in my car and drove back to the emissions place. for some reason it took twice as long to re-test as it did the first time. but in the meantime some lady whose lexus failed the test because the "check engine" light was on started freaking out and kept exclaiming that Juan at Lexus of Bevery Hills has checked out her car tons of times and she's spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars and it's just on all the time. they even have a running joke about it. poor Juan at Lexus of Beverly Hills. this lady starts crying on the phone. i couldn't help but laugh. it was hilarious. sad, but frickin hilarious. the guy behind the counter tells her that she can just mail the form and things'll be fine. they don't care if it's passed or not, they just want their money. you've gotta be KIDDING ME!!! let's just say i was a little upset.

so i got to work at 2:30pm. it's now just about 9:30pm. i figure i have another hour of work to do and then i'll leave. i know most people would've just said "fuck it" and gone home at 2:30. but they don't make toys for a living and have a job they almost gave their left arm for (elevator incident, don't ask).

so now i'm goin back to work. you know how we do.
- posted by yeah...about that... @ 9:27 PM