Oh Berkeley, How I've Missed You/I'll Wait a Few More Days Before Driving My Car into that Bridge Embankment/The Slide that Saved the Day

(Please pardon the somewhat graphic nature of this post...Sarah, you're in high school now so I guess you should know that sometimes people say bad words in real life).

The other day, I was hopping on my bike to leave campus when an older gentleman approached me, paused, gave me a funny look, and then said; "Ummm....sexual intercourse??"

I pondered his proposition for a moment and then replied in a similar fashion; "Ummm....that's extremely rude of you, sir."

In response to my somewhat justified answer to his question he said, and I quote; "I KNEW that you would say something like that, you fucking slut, whore." And then, before I could even apologize for being so painfully predictable, he walked away...

The following day, I was on campus again, returning to my car after sitting in a oven-like computer lab printing stuff for class. As I walked back to my car...hot, sweaty, hungry, and cranky...I was thinking about how nice it was going to be to sit in my car, blast the AC and listen to some sweet tunes. Alas, as soon as I opened the door to my vehicle, I had a painful flashback of this past Christmas when my car window was smashed in Santa Barbara and a multitude of my things were stolen. The only difference being the fact that, this time, I was parked on a busy street, in the middle of the day, and there was nothing in my car (except the iPod that was tucked away in the center console, which was, naturally, stolen). BASTARDS!And as if Berkeley had not yet made me feel welcome enough, two nights ago I got a triple wammy (strangely, all three via email...talk about the stars aligning).

As it were, this Monday night I got the following 3 emails:

1. Email from my current landlord/vacation rental proprietor saying she wanted to rent out a larger portion of her house and that I was welcome to stay as long as I was okay with paying an extra $700 a month...in other words, I have to move out October 1st

2. Email from my ex-landlord (by whom I was renting out a "furnished" house while he and his family were out of the country for a year)...attached was a THREE PAGE, single-spaced, Word document explicitly detailing how disrespectful and impolite it was of me to move around all the furniture in their house and put their crap down in the garage and, as a result, they would not be returning the remainder of my security deposit (please see photo below to get a sense of the condition they left their house in for me to move in last year)...in other words, see you on Judge Judy a-holes (actually, Uncle Geoff, we could have a mock Judge Judy trial for practice, you are, after all, a lawyer...Megan, you should be there too).
(not-so-empty kitchen drawer)

3. Email from my mom saying she accidentally opened a piece of mail from Geico for me which said they were canceling my policy as of October 5th as a result of a 2007 accident and 2 tickets. I must say though, this one did sort of make me smile as I remembered one of those tickets which I received on my way to Tahoe this past winter...after getting lost and then finding one of the highways closed, I ended up having to drive all the way around the lake to get Tahoe City...by 2AM, after driving for 6 hours, I was a bit delirious and had my music up as loud as possible in an effort to stay awake. Apparently, I was going a bit over the speed limit and I drove for over a mile with a cop behind me, sirens on, before I realized I was being pulled over. He had to call for backup and by the time he came to my car window, there were 4 cop cars behind me and about 8 or so cops. He asked me about six times, "how much have you been drinking, how much pot have you smoked, what prescription drugs are you on??" Sadly, I wasn't on any of the above...if I had been, at least then I would have had a better excuse then just being a total idiot (well, I guess either scenario is pretty idiotic). As the saying goes, friends don't let friends drive blond.

I felt prepared to write this blog today because I knew that my story could end on a happy note. For me, salvation came, as it so often does, in the form of a playground meant for children ages 2-5. Regardless of what my birth certificate says, I've always thought of myself as a child aged 2-5 (incidentally, the playground in question has a sign that reads "For Children Ages 2-5; Parent supervision recommended"...hmm, really, just recommended? That make sense, it sounds totally safe for a 2 year old to walk to a park alone and swing on the monkey bars).

I will not go into too much detail here...this is one of those cases where videos speak louder than words. And so I leave you with the following...



And I bid you goodnight...