Because it's ME, of course

Last night, I went out to the parking lot to get my asthma inhaler from my car. One small problem, though: my car wasn't there.

I called the police, who were able to track it down for me. It had been towed, due to the fact that my tags were slightly expired. I called the tow truck company, who explained to me that my apartment complex hires them to cruise the parking lot periodically for things like that. Bastards.)

Side note: remember the reason I went out to my car in the first place? I told the tow company that my asthma medicine was in the car. "Well, we're 24 hours," they told me helpfully. "You can come pick it up now." (It's 10:30 pm by now.) "Um, sir?" I politely began. "I don't have a CAR." "Oh yeah," he said. To make a long story short, I used my feminine wiles on him and actually convinced him to drop my inhaler off on his way home at the end of his shift that night. (He got off at 11.) And since he was already going into my car for me, I also asked him to get the envelope titled "Car Papers" out of my glove box for me, since I figured I'd need all of that information anyway. So yeah, I'm da bomb.

Anyway, I got a ride to school this morning and then began figuring out a way to get my car back. The problem, as I quickly discovered, was that the tow company wouldn't release the car to me until I had a valid license plate and registration/tags, since it wasn't "street legal," blah blah blah. HOWEVER, in order to GET my Florida registration and license plate, they require that my car BE there. So I was in quite a pickle.

(LOL. I actually used that phrase.)

Anyway, the tow truck company offered to tow my car TO the license plate and registration place for me (in Florida, it's the tax collectors office). They didn't charge me any extra for that; pretty nice of them, considering I had already paid them $165 to get my car back in the first place. Mind you, the PRINCIPAL had to drive me to the tow place, since I couldn't wait till after school (I was afraid I'd run out of time and then have to pay the tow people an additional per-day charge until Monday) and everyone I know in Florida was either out of town (Frank) or here at school until about 4:00. AND they had to pull in a sub to cover my classes for a couple of hours this morning. (We have permanent in-house subs, so that wasn't a huge deal. And luckily, I have a very sweet and understanding principal.)

So Eric (the tow truck driver) brought me to the tax collectors office, unloaded my car, and waited as I took care of everything. I made it back to school at the end of 4th hour.

Oh, and one last thing--Eric* and I have a date. He asked me out as he walked me back out to my car.

*He's 38, which at first sounded old to me until I remembered, shit, *I'M* 30. He recently retired from the military (that makes him sound REALLY old, but he joined when he was 17) and just got back from Iraq about 8 months ago. He was a 1st Lt. in one of the Airborne Divisions--I want to say the 101st but I'm not sure. He's divorced, with two daughters, 14 and 9, whom he has every other weekend. He got the divorce papers during one of his tours about 3 years ago. Him and they ex are still good friends, though....can you tell we did a lot of talking today? (He called me on my cell on my way back to school and we talked for another 15 minutes or so.)