Friday, January 10, 2014

Last Night: Journey to Michael's, is this Pittsburgh or Antarctica?

Let me tell you about my night a few nights ago:  I left work all bundled up except for my gloves because I am using my phone.  In about 45 seconds of walking outside, the tips of my fingers are prickly burning like the beginnings of frostbite!  Apparently a negative 5 degree temperature will do that.  It wasn't this cold earlier in the day, it was a whole 10 degrees, much more tolerable.  So I finish up on my phone and fumble to put my gloves on, which is super hard to do when your fingers are half numb half burning in pain.  I wait for the bus, couldn't have took more than 10 minutes to arrive, but my toes are frozen in my combat boots by the time I get on!  Apparently I should have watched the news warnings...

 

I get home and have to prepare to go back out and run to Michael's for some stuff.  Recognizing how cold it is I get on an extra hat, scarf, and gloves, and go back outside to wait for a bus to Michael's.  The bus is late and I end up waiting about 17 minutes.  Finally I see a bus way down the street, I will it to hurry up and get to me, it gets to me, it's the wrong bus.  Not only are my toes freezing but I'm feeling a little cold everywhere else as well.  I'm ready to say forget it and go back home to warmth, but then my bus shows up!

On the bus when I'm almost at my destination I decide to check the bus schedule so that I know what time to wait for the bus back.  I decide to catch the soonest bus rather than wait an hour and a half for the following bus, it's just way too cold for that!  So I figure I'll only have maybe 30 minutes to be in and out of Michael's, therefore I prepare my 50% off coupon (yup I always use a coupon at Michael's) on my phone, so I won't have to mess with it in the store knowing my phone is stupid and slow.  I'm almost at my stop when my phone starts acting stupid and slow (I knew it, that's why I started early).

Unfortunately messing with my phone made me miss my stop, and the next stop is far far in the opposite direction of Michael's.  WTF! This is all my stupid idiot phone's fault!  I get off the bus with 30 minutes before my bus home comes, but now I have to walk/run 15 minutes to even get to Michael's.  And here we go, my phone is on crack and decides it won't turn back on until I restart it.  The whole walk/run I'm muttering all types of cuss-words, mad at the time being wasted and how dumb my phone is and how I'm going to miss my bus home and how I'm freezing.  Yes, I'm freezing!  My fingers are prickling again and I literally have to pull my fingers out of their slots and ball my fists within the gloves for the pain to go away. Why is it this cold in addition to the other crap things that are ruining my plans?


When I finally get to Michael's there is only 15 minutes left for shopping.  No time for browsing, gotta grab stuff and go!  To bad the main yarn I came for (because it's on sale) is no longer in it's normal spot and the sale yarn isn't even marked as being on sale.  So now I gotta waste time thoroughly searching for this yarn and guessing from memory which yarn is on sale since they didn't think that labeling was a good idea.  I finally find it (except 1 shade I need isn't in stock) and make a mad dash to the cash register.  I swear it's like I'm on super market sweeps (my mom used to LOVE that show).  Luckily there's no one in line, and I picked the correct sale yarn, but now my coupon won't scan.  Ugh, you do all the preparation possible and still end up getting held up.  The nice cashier who doesn't know I only got 8 minutes before my bus comes and a 5 minute walk to the bus stop, kindly goes to look for a different coupon to use.

Nice cashier probably thinks me insane as I grab my 3 large bags of craft supplies and run out of the store and towards my bus stop.  As I'm running I hear a loud bang on the opposite of the parking lot, but I ignore it and keep running.  It's 8:30 pm, dark, and -5 degrees outside, I don't want to miss my bus and wait an hour for the next one.  Soon after the noise, I hear police sirens, then I see a police car followed by 2 more police cars all with their lights flashing and sirens blaring.  Suddenly it dawns on me, oh snap!  That noise was a car crash by someone being chased by the police!

Just as I put 2 and 2 together I hear police screaming GET ON THE GROUND! GET ON THE GROUND!  I want to keep running to the bus and ignore the crime scene but the social networker in me forced me to stop and take a few crappy pictures of the scene.

 

You can see lights across the parking lot, that's them capturing the guy saying GET DOWN NOW!!!


Out the front window is an ambulance and a bunch of cop cars.


Out the window on the right you can see a cop standing there.  Very riveting stuff.

I then continue my sprint to the bus stop carrying my huge bags.

Luckily, I did not miss the bus.  We passed the crime scene and although I couldn't see, by other passengers comments, the criminal got messed up either in the crash or by the cops or both.  He apparently was in a store (most likely stealing) ran out and into his car to try to drive away but got chased, crashed, and caught.

In summary, my night was a -5 degree frostbitten mess!  But the mission got accomplished in the end, I got a completely unwanted workout, and half saw a police chase.

This will be me until it warms up.

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