Bad Luck/Good Luck

BIRTHDAY DRAMA IN VERMONT

For my birthday, Angela got me a very colorful (like rainbow colorful) wire/bead lizard, made me a cute card (yes with more lizards), and got me a rockin' plain green t-shirt seen in the pic below.



Then Saturday she had a surprise-filled day all planned out for me. Angela, Stella, and I fired up the old Kia and headed to Vermont. I've never really hung out in Vermont. In fact, I've only driven through VT. a few times on my way to New York and I was not impressed...I don't know, the places I drove through on route 9 kind of creeped me out. So Angela, who loves Vermont, decided to get me to love Vermont too.

Ever heard the saying, "Love works in mysterious ways"?

We drove on route 14 along the White River, through Sharon, North Pomfret (accidentally), South Royalton, Bethel, Randolph and I think Brookfield.

In Brookfield we visited with a good friend of Angela's who had a house on top of a big hill with a very green and pretty view down onto Randolph and the surrounding hills and fields. We stayed a long time soaking up sun and gardening, lounging on a rock like a lizard, then eating extra sharp cheddar, perfectly ripe canteloupe, and sipping on cool white wine.

After a nice mellow wine buzz was achieved, it was time for more surprises...meeting Angela's sister, Devon, followed by dinner at a place called River Run...she would not tell me anymore details than that...like what kind of food this place had etc, and after dinner we'd be headed to Montpelier.

Here is where the drama begins.

We stop for gas just outside Montpelier on the way to her sisters. I pay for the gas with my debit card (which I take out of my purple cassette tape wallet which I set on the back end of my car).

.

I get in the car and we go 10 minutes down the road to Angie's sister's house. I meet Devon who is very pretty and very pregnant. We drop Stella off and as we're leaving I look to grab my purple wallet, but it's no where to be found. I immediately start panicking and feeling sick.

I left my wallet on the backend of my car, wide open. FUCK! Stupid, stupid, Sarah. I've lost shoes off my car before, but not my wallet. It had $67 in cash, my 2 credit cards, all my gift cards from work ($100 value), and my debit card, and driver's license). And due to Angela forgetting her wallet at home I was, until a few minutes ago, the only one with money for dinner. We drive back to the gas station...we see no sign of it anywhere...I left my name and phone number with the woman running the gas station. As we're leaving the gas station, Adam and Co. show up (they forgot that they were part of the surprise, I wasn't supposed to know anyone was supposed to be meeting us for dinner).

We forge on and go to dinner at the River Run Restaurant and I struggled with not completely bawling and breaking something so I busy myself with sucking down some Red Stripe and eating loads of soul food. How conflicting...feeling so happy that my girl and our friends are doing so many sweet things for my birthday, yet feeling so absolutely idiotic and mad at myself for letting my wallet and it's contents fly all over Vermont (and there were rivers we crossed over too that stuff could have flown into).

Anyhow, River Run is a soul food restaurant in Plainfield, Vermont, serving up dishes of fried pickles, fried green tomatoes, hushpuppies, pulled pork, fried chicken and catfish, and of course collard greens and cornbread. The fried green tomotoes were fucking fantastic! The pulled pork too. Angela's very very nice friends payed for our dinner, because we had no deniero, no lira, no kronor, no nothing.

It's dark; we head to the Langdon Street Cafe in Montpelier for music and more drinks. My cell phone suddenly comes back into service area when we get into downtown. I check my messages. Some nice old guy had found my wallet and some cash and cards. As I'm listening to the message my phone rings and it's a policeman saying that someone dropped off my driver's license at the Montpelier PD. Someone else had found it. It looks like this:


Someone ran over my license. It's got a war wound.

After I retrieved my license from the PD, we drive up to the old guy's house which is across from the local gun and ammo club...this guy gave me the longest worst funniest directions ever...when he mentioned the gun range I got a little nervous. I thought he might be a big gun-toting, Republican, homophobe so both Angie and I decided she should stay in the car.

Turns out he was a really nice steel guitar maker with a really sweet wife, who when I offered to give them something in return for them returning everything to me, said they wanted nothing, except for me to stop on in if I'm up in the area ever again. He had been on his nightly walk down the road when he found all my stuff scattered all over a bridge (I am so lucky my shit didn't fly off into the river). All my money and even some change, all my cards too, everything except my driver's license (which someone else had found), and my debit card he had found on his little walk. So out of this whole debacle, the only thing still missing was my debit card. In celebration we go back to the Cafe in Montpelier and have a drink, chat with some interesting characters, and dance briefly, then go grab Stella and drive 2 hours home and stumble into bed at nearly 3am.

Sunday morning I cancel my debit card. It's only 10 bucks and means a week a without having my card...but I always use my debit card...I rarely ever have cash on me.

Sunday evening before I go to DJ at the Red Door, I'm at my condo in Dover, and I dump my purse out on my bed to find my little notepad that I write my silly lists on. On the top of the stack of crap from my purse, I notice a receipt. It's the receipt from the notorious gas station from the day before. I think, hmm...why was that in my purse, that should be somewhere scattered on the roadside in Vermont. Then I look past the receipt and I see my debit card! I say out loud to myself, you've go to be fucking kidding me. I had taken the receipt and debit card and stuffed them into my purse back at the gas station and that's why I forgot all about my wallet because it seemed like I had put something in my purse.

Grrrr!! and Yeah!!! all at the same time.