My 3 day weekend.

I am taking Monday off from work. No particular reason. I've just been getting a tad burned out lately and a few weeks ago thought it would be nice to have an extra day to putz around the house so I scheduled a vacation day.

So much for the idea of some extra free time. My vacation day has turned into what looks to be "super errand day" instead.

At 10:00 a.m. Monday morning my car has an "appointment" that I must be present at. Later that afternoon I am escorting my mother to her "appointment" and in the early evening I am escorting my dog to her "appointment." Apparently my appointment is the task of assisting others with their appointments.

Far be it for me to complain however. I much prefer the idea of playing the role of chauffeur (Driving Miss Twinky comes to mind) than actually having any of these "appointment" procedures being done to me.

The first appointment is for my poor little car. The poor little baby that has just over 1,200 miles on it is already in need of some cosmetic surgery. Sure I owned my beater Honda for 6 years and never got so much as a door ding on it but I own this lovely brand new cutie and within weeks she has already received some unsightly blemishes on three different parts of her body.

For the attentive readers who might be shocked and outraged due to my referencing my car as one with a sexual identity -- in this case "she" -- yes, it was me who has made it oh, so clear in the past that I find it a bit misogynist to name cars and boats and other inanimate objects after women. I still feel that way. I just really, really like my new car and referring to her as an "it" in this particular context, well, just seems cold.

The first incident happened a couple of weeks ago when I drove ALL THE WAY OUT TO ST HELENS (which I put in caps because it is a lot further away from Portland than I realized) to see a horse that one of my co-workers just adopted. When I arrived at her and her husband's farm her three dogs, big dogs, surrounded my car excited about a visitor. This set off the security alarm in my car (namely a Corgi named Twinky). Well, the alarm in my car set off the security alarm on the farm (namely a Boxer named Cinnamon, a Rottweiler named Zeus and a cattle dog named Chloe) which in turn caused the alarm in my car to go off again which escalated the alarm on the farm (specifically the portion of the alarm named Cinnamon). By this point I had managed to get out of my car safely but I was in no position to protect it. The quite large and intimidating looking (I grew up with a Boxer so I know they are complete love bugs but boy can they look fierce) dog proceeded to jump up on both sides of my car as well as the rear, leaving scratch marks everywhere she went. The owner of the dog was 9 months pregnant (I say was because the alien from her body has since revealed itself) so she couldn't move fast enough to stop it and I was temporarily left unable to move both from a personal fear perspective as well as that moment forever memorialized in my brain in slow motion "Not my car! Oh, man not my car!" After nearly every angle of my car had been assaulted we were finally able to turn off both of the alarms. Apparently I need one of those talking alarms that instead of saying "Step away from the car" in a deep masculine voice, says, "Bad dog. No! Sit! Stay!"

Just days later my dog, my car and I visited the dog park just down the street from my house. This is a park that few know about so it is nearly always free of dogs. And yes, it is very close to my house so I could have walked there but Twinky and I were in the midst of errands and much like fast food, it was just more convenient to drive there. I spent a good 45 minutes or so talking to a guy who was playing ball with his dog. Yes the guy was cute and (seemingly) nice and I stayed way longer than was necessary to tire my dog, and alas the guy was married but hey, it does good for the soul to remind myself there are nice guys out there somewhere (even if they are married to someone else).

As we were leaving the park his dog ran towards my car. The back hatch was open and the guy yelled for his dog not to jump in. I wasn't particularly concerned as the inside of my hatchback is well protected with several layers of blankets just for that purpose. What I wasn't prepared for was the dog first going to the passenger door (apparently he is a front seat kinda dog) and jumping up to look through the window ("Oh, what nice upholstery," he might have been thinking). Then the dog proceeded to jump into my car from the back and I forgot about the front door because I was tyring desperately to discourage the dog from jumping into my front seat (which is not so well protected from the likes of canines). At this point the guy finally got control of his dog and was more concerned with whether or not his dog had dropped his ball in my car. Perhaps he was embarrassed, perhaps I was reluctant to yell at the guy because he was cute, I don't know...but the matter was more less dismissed. It wasn't until I got home that I saw that "Adler" had put a six or seven inch scratch down my passenger door (just below Cinnamon's previous work which in retrospect seems minor) similar to the work of a teenager with a key on a late night vandalism spree.

Since that time I figured out where the guy lives (thanks to the several years of my life dedicated to activism, being a informational stalker comes rather easy to me) and wrote him a letter indicating that I was going to be getting an estimate to send to him for the repairs. Well, he called yesterday and left me a message. To put it mildly, I am no longer a fan of this man. In fact, I am on the cusp of actually wishing him physical (or at least financial harm). He claims he is not going to pay for it, in fact he denies the door jump incident even happened. Oh, yes, you Adler's dad, just looked like you had so much money that I thought I would drive up and down the street looking for your car (I wonder how many dog scratches I might find on it and if I could match up the prints to the one on mine?) just to get you to pay for marks on my car that I probably put there when I drunkenly ran into an abandoned grocery cart. You're right, my mistake, please forgive me.

I'll be sending him the estimate anyhow, as well as a small claims court notification if he doesn't pay. Yes, the fees for filing the papers will probably cost more than the repair of my car but I'm a woman of principle.