Judecorp.

Ugh, that damned gym in Dorchester.

Remember those days when I went to the gym like a good do-bee? Yeah, me too. That was a long time ago. I was a diligent gym-goer until my dad died completely unexpectedly and we spent far too much free time for a year and a half going through his things and emptying out his house and making sure my grandparents were doing okay. And I just plain stopped going to the gym, although I was nice enough to continue to pay them monthly for a year. See how considerate I am?

Eventually last summer I got tired of paying full price (even the reasonable $35) and put my account on hold for three months ($5/mo). And then in October Jen started working in Amherst and I went back into the gym (Keep in mind going there makes me feel like a weenie because I paid for a year+ with no gym action) to cancel my account. Filled out a form, have a nice day.

I got charged in November. And December. And January. Full price. I called in November. And December. And January. Got lots of "so and so will call you back" with no callbacks, and I admit it - sometimes I would forget. There was Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and the dead baby, and seven weeks of bleeding, and the new job... you get the idea.

When I got charged at the end of January, I was like, "This is it." I made it my mission to call. And call. And call. Oh my god, they hate me there. I call Jessica. She says, "You have to talk to Carol." I call Carol. She says, "You have to talk to Jessica." Yesterday Jessica tells me, when I ask why she hasn't called me back, "I have other things to do, you know. I don't just sit around and look for your paperwork all day. Call Carol."

So I have called at least three times a day since Monday. Yesterday Jessica finally tells me, "You never deleted your account, you put it on hold." "Yes, in August. And I came in AGAIN in October." (OMG how many months have I told you this?) She says, "Carol will definitely talk to you tomorrow." I am not above crying to these people. Oh no, I am not.

This morning, I call Carol. The manager. She says, "You put your account on hold." I hate these people. I tell her AGAIN. I tell her I've been calling since NOVEMBER. She says, "I will figure something out and call you on Monday."

I wonder if *I* will have to call *her* on Monday. Any bets? I am trying to get back 3 months of fees by this point. $100 might not seem like a lot, but we could buy a LOT of groceries with that.

Jen and I were sitting on the couch talking while I was waiting to go to book club and we heard a bit of a commotion out on the street. It really seemed to show no signs of stopping so we did what any self-respecting Nosey Parkers would do, and went to the window. An obviously intoxicated man was shouting at a man in another car, things like, "Don't park in front of my g-d house!" or whatever. The man in the car was just trying to get away; he had obviously parked in order to take the T to work.

This continued, and when the car guy started driving off, the drunk guy hit the back of his (nice) car. Still yelling. He kicked the car. Still yelling. The dude tried to drive away some more and Drunk Guy went to the side of the car to yell into the (closed) window. At this point, dude started getting pissed and did a little back up maneuver to try to scare Drunk Guy, who got more pissed and then punched the front of the car. At this point, dude makes a motion like he's going to hit Drunk Guy with his car and Drunk Guy starts screaming some more, so dude starts to drive up, turning right down the street that runs perpendicular to our street, right in front of our house.

Drunk Guy chases after him and, no joke, pulls a bottle of booze out from the back waist of his pants and chucks it at dude's car. Only he's drunk, right? So instead, the bottle smashes into our trunk and back window, shattering the back window, denting and scratching the trunk, and spraying cheap vodka and broken glass throughout the interior of our car. So I yell, "YOU HIT MY FUCKING CAR!" at him through the window and then proceed to run downstairs while dialing the police.

While I am running downstairs, dude decides he's had quite enough of Drunk Guy and gets out of his car, grabs some bricks from a sidewalk, and begins pummeling the crap out of Drunk Guy. Then when Drunk Guy is down, he starts kicking him like woah. Then he drives off, the police come. Drunk Guy is walking down the street bleeding everywhere and I flag down the police car.

Eventually we (and another witness) give our statements and Drunk Guy goes by ambulance to the hospital. But before he gets to this point he was nice enough to slur and bleed all around me while he apologizes for damaging our car but "he got hit and there was so much blood he couldn't see." (This is comical because he got hit AFTER he hit our car. And I'm stupid enough to have decided to point this out to him. So he came closer to me with all of his drunk blood and I got to say, "Don't touch me!")

So the police take a report of vandalism and now if we want to have the trunk dent/scratches fixed we have to pay a $500 deductible. I guess the glass doesn't have a deductible. And I'm hoping our insurance won't go up since it wasn't our fault, but I'm dubious.

Another day, another incident with the car in the neighborhood. I have to walk to work in the morning for play group and then cancel all of my afternoon visits and walk home, since the window people won't be able to come until tomorrow afternoon. The car has been backed into my neighbor's driveway, the people I used to babysit for, and hopefully nothing will get stolen. But I wouldn't be surprised at this point.

I really would like to know why our lives have to suck so badly. I think we're good people, you know?

Woah, there was a shooting a couple of blocks from me at a home-based music studio. Three people are dead and one is wounded.

While looking for more information about this, I found out that there were 10+ shots fired up the street from my office yesterday afternoon around 12:30pm... while I was in the office eating lunch.

A little too close to home, I think. Yowch.