this morning i got up buttfuck early for work. you see, one of the company vehicles is at our los angeles office and it should be at our san diego office. the task of driving it down was assigned to me. backstory: our los angeles office landlords are pissed that we've had it parked in the same spot for so long so we tried to move it the other day. the battery was dead and two of our workers who drive for a living jump-started it with my jumper cables, (my cables being that i'm the only real man in the office since only real men are prepared and keep a set of jumper cables in their car). they moved it to a different location in the parking lot, out in the actual parking structure where it could be hidden from big brother.

yesterday i was going to take it to san diego but naturally the battery was dead again because when it was charged all they did was move the vehicle and not drive it around long enough to hold the charge. it was parked in a way so that my jumper cables would not reach. there was only one thing to do: call AAA. the AAA truck arrives to tell us his vehicle does not fit in the parking structure. we then put the truck in neutral and push. it makes its way out the structure and is jump-started again. but before that happened, i pointed out that the gas tank is low so AAA put in a little fuel. (i don't think it had enough gas to drive around to hold the charge. i just didn't want to stop at a gas station and have to jump-start it yet again.) i drove it around the neighborhood for 2 loops and filled it up with gas. luckily, it started again. then i parked it in the structure backwards so that in case it needed to get jumped again the cables would reach.

this morning i got to work at 7:30am (i normally start at 9am) and i wasn't sure if the building would be unlocked. as i don't have a key to the building, yesterday i made sure i had everything i needed and the only reason i would go up to the office would be to punch in. the building was open and the parking lot already had several cars. it turns out many people start work before 8am--i don't know how they do it. i went to the office, punched in, walked to the car, and it started on its own. i brought a couple cds with me to listen to during the drive. i have to get down to the san diego office by 9:30am so that someone there can drive me back up to los angeles. there i am getting into the groove of a small road trip when i hit orange county traffic. then i get the call: return back to the office, someone has come to pick up the vehicle and they are waiting. thanks--why didn't anyone notify me about this earlier?

later that night, twiddle thumbs, nopalita, and i went to a vietnamese restaurant in south el monte that claims to use no animal products nor msg in its food. it was kind of strange. the place only has a B rating for cleanliness so we were a little hesitant but starving so we went in. i don't know what it is about LA restaurants that claim to be vietnamese but i swear they are all chinese. the place was only being patronized by old people and no one really spoke english there. we picked some things off the menu and it wasn't bad but it wasn't great so we won't be going there again.

as we were driving nopalita back to her place, we noticed a rock en español music shop we had never seen before so we pulled over and went in. as we were getting out of the car i said, "if they have the tecnopal record, i'm getting it!" backstory: the tecnopal record is my spanish rock holy grail. it is the rare en español item that i am seeking to add to my collection. before victimas del dr. cerebro, there was tecnopal. they released 2 records, actual vinyl. the second one was entitled "victimas del dr. cerebro" and after that that's what they changed their name to. i have only seen the record once before in person and i thought it was too expensive. i have seen it once or twice on ebay and missed my chance. in short, i'm wiling to pay for it now, within reason though!

sure enough, one of the first things i see when i enter is a row of records on the wall behind the counter and the very last one is the tecnopal record that my collection is missing. i get excited inside and tell nopalita that they have it. she then proceeded to talk to the worker in spanish to ask about the price and how i want it, etc. now i appreciate it but i don't know why she did this. i very well could've asked him myself, but in english. we aren't in mexico, i really don't need this kind of assistance. twiddle thumbs thinks nopalita blew it. i don't know. the worker got weird. this was all in spanish of course and i picked up some of it but the rest was later translated for me.

at first the worker didn't even know what record she was asking about because she asked for tecnopal and no worker knows that unless they are a big fan. then i said very poorly "victimas del dr..." (i think i trailed off) because i just felt little of the butterflies at the possibility of finally owning this item. i decided to let nopalita go on and i wandered around looking at other items and kept my ears open. the worker wanted to know why i wanted it and then said it's not for sale. he said he has their other cds. nopalita said that i want it because i am a fan and i have all of the cds. he may have acted this way because i just didn't look mexican or i was too dressed up for the area? i don't know. i never changed out of my work clothes. this is the first time i have gone to a record store and have had my fandom (right word?) questioned and been rejected from a purchase. i thought with nopalita's enthusiastic talk for sure the man would jack up the price but he didn't even attempt to sell it at all. straight out, he didn't want me to have it.

later i kept thinking about it and got really pissed off that he questioned my fandom. do i need to carry around my pictures with the freakin' members?! whatever. twiddle thumbs and nopalita both swore they would get their cousins and boyfriends to go into that store and buy it for me. one way or another it will be mine, oh yes it will be mine.