Memorial Day in the City

Erik and I went for dinner with our neighbor memorial day weekend. It started out being a normal evening, we sat on the patio at "Smokie Bones". That is something we cherish in the city- a pation. A restaurant with a good patio will literally become a favorite solely because of their patio, it doesn't really matter your prices or the quality of your food - if you have a patio, you are guaranteed business.

As we are sitting on the patio eating our brisket (we don't have a patio at home to grill so we need to eat bbq on a patio at a restaurant, or something like that anyway), 4 fire trucks pull up to the street. One so much as bullies a 4 runner to reverse down the street. As we look up, the apartment on top of the dry cleaners next door is on fire. You can literally see flames. No one really seems to be panicking... even the fire fighters are tra-la-laing around. Finally they put a latter up to the balcony, one climbs up the latter and stares. Literally they just stare at the fire. So we finish our dinner and hop across the street to take a better look.

Aparently a barbeque (also known as a GRILL) started on fire. HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! So of course Erik and I pose for a picture in front of the fire - I mean that seems appropriate, right???

What a random evening!

Look above the cleaners sign - you will see the "fire" and "fire fighter".

Vehicle Update

So I feel like I should be updating everyone on the mess this whole car thing has turned into.

Lets start with Monday morning about 9:30am. I receive a phone call from our insurance company stating they cannot find my car. Towing Company A (let's call them TC-A) was supposed to tow the car after the accident to Auto Body Shop A (Shop A) where it was to be locked up until they heard from my insurance company. We gave the insurance company Shop A's information and when they called to follow up on the car - Shop A educated the insurance company that they have never seen said car. WHAT?!?!?! Where the H - E double hockey stick is my damn car???? So we got on the phone via conference call (shocking, right?) and I began to persistently request information regarding my vehicle with Shop A - I mean it was a 5 car crash how exactly did we lose these cars??? My insurance company instructed me to call the police since they were the ones that called the tow truck in the first place. After 30 min on the phone with the Chicago PD's finest - I decided to leave work to do some investigation...

So I start with calling TC-A I pulled out my receipt and got the phone number, upon calling said number I realized it had been canceled. Then I googled them - called that number and that person no longer worked there. After literally 8 or 9 phone numbers - I start calling auto body shops and find one who has a cellphone number to one of the drivers. I call said driver and he educates me that Shop A refused my car per the insurance company's request. R U KIDDING ME??? REALLY?? As you may recall - my insurance company was the one that told me my car was missing! So attempting to fight my boiling rage (and popping a xnax) I waited on hold for 1 hour and 15 minutes to give the insurance company TC-A's information because they wanted my car towed by Towing Company B to Auto Body Shop B. I left the information and went on with my day.

At 4:00pm I get a phone voicemail from the insurance company that they are still awaiting the information of where my car is and if I could please contact them soon it would be appreciated. Upon my next contact with said insurance company - I found out they had no record of my 1 hour and 15 minute hold time and conversation. Learning from my mistake the first time - I made this intelligent human call TC-A and TC-B along with Shop B and keep me on hold and in the loop every step of the way. How many insurance call center peeps does it take to... (there's a joke in here somewhere).

So today is WEDNESDAY (reminder- the incident was saturday) and E persistently contacts Shop B for updates. Finally Shop B reveals the estimate is $5800 and it will take 3 1/2 weeks to fix.

AMAZING...

No tolerence for those without insurance

So its Saturday night, I get home from Iowa at about 8pm and we decide to chill at home and catch up on Friday Night Lights. About midnight we get a knock at our door. This is strange because you have to be buzzed in through two external doors before getting into our building, then climb 4 flights of stairs before knocking on our door. Erik answered it and it was our neighbor Amy. She said "hi Monica you need to come down stairs, your car is totalled, would you like a piece of cake?". We are both like - WHAT?!? So we get dressed and go down stairs where I see a 5 car pile up - mine is the 4th.

According to the police and witnessing neighbors, this is what happened:

Someone stole my neighbor's car, took a victory lap almost hitting a little girl (why a little girl was out on the street at midnight I will never know) and she screamed which is why the neighbors all ran outside. On his second lap around he lost control of the white bronco, hit two parked cars before smashing into mine. The other two cars were up on their sides smashed into trees. Mine was just kind of schrunched. So the super intelligent neighbor just purchased the vehicle and didn't have insurance.

The police wrote up police reports and my other neighbor went into his apartment and got us all a beer. Right with the police there we drank a beer - that's weird, right?? So apparently it's illegal to have a wrecked car parked on a city street in Chicago - so the cops made us tow our cars. The towing company gave me a receipt and the place it was going to and at about 4am, we finally made it back to bed... carless.

Someone has a case of the Mondays...

Its Monday morning just like any other Monday morning... I'm walking to the train, I got my headphones on listening to some music. About 7:50 amI get to the platform at Belmont and wait for my train. When you have your ipod on, you can tell a train is coming but you can't tell from which way - so I look down the station to see if the lights are coming my way. There was a gentleman looking down at the tracks with his hands in the air with a "what the Hell" kind of expression. The train comes to a SCREECHING STOP. Smoke everywhere. In my head I was thinking - really? Did they just stop the train b/c he was too close to the edge? That seems silly, I need to get to work.

Then I hear a woman SCREAMING at the top of her lungs "oh my god oh my god noooooo". So I pull off my ipod and we all start migrating towards the stopped train. A man pale as a ghost is walking by and I grab his arm asking what happened. He said a man just jumped infront of the train. Then you smelled it... it smelled like burning hair (did you know the train tracks are electrical? I didn't). I am just standing there FROZEN, the guy is under the train and CTA members are running like crazy back and forth. A girl I work with came up to me and was like, uh Monica - we need to go to work lets go. I felt like my feet were glued to the ground - I absolutely could not move. So finally the fire department starts clearing us out - I finally got to work about 9:45am by a co-worker who came to get me.

As the day went on I was completely in shock - I needed to find my feeling box and get those feelings stuffed down in there. As I worked through my change management process - I started to get angry, I mean really angry! Ok I get it - you want to die - this is your choice. You have already made that decision. Now the 2 busiest commuting times in Chicago are 8am Monday morning and about 4:30pm Friday night. Now, if you are selfish enough to actually kill yourself - how about we not do it at one of the busiest travel times - if you're going to jump in front of a train - do it at 3:00pm on a Wednesday. I promise the trains go just as fast and you won't mess up thousands of people's days. GEEZE!!