While I was outside of my apartment today, I checked my mail. Wacky, right? Mailboxes aren’t really that useful in these Internet Times, but I still check in there out of habit and to throw out flyers. It’s a boring chore. But not today! Today I got something of a surprise. I got something worth doing a post on this website!

Anyway. It’s like this. There’s a thing in the mail saying I had a month-old unpaid parking ticket. So far, this seems possible. I’m a delivery driver, I do a lot of illegal parking over the course of the night, but it was strange that I never got a ticket on my window. Then I notice that it says the ticket was issued at 9:27 am! What kind of PDR would I be if I were out and active at that ungodly hour? Certainly that’s not a time I’d be working. If anything, I’d be in bed, hiding from the sun.

But I can’t remember what I was doing on January 18th. What kind of sicko remembers things that far back? Well, I know that I send 75% of my errant thoughts to young Marq, so I open up our text conversation thread and scroll back a month to see what I was up to. It turns out that that was the very day I went out to get my Covid vaccine booster shot! Ah, so I had a reason to be out! It all makes sense again. BUT WAIT! I got my Booster at the Shoppers across the street from my apartment. I didn’t take the car. And anyway, the thing says the ticket was issued on University Avenue.

Still, I deserve a little comeuppance. And it’s only 35 dollars. My financial situation has been improving, this won’t crush me. I don’t worry about it while I work, though I do wonder if maybe I’d managed to get a ticket in my own parking space because someone didn’t know I lived there? And maybe some rebellious teens took the ticket away as a youthful prank? But that’s not on University Avenue. The contradictions are endless.

I figure that I can finally cease my wonderings when I get home from work and log onto the city’s website to look up the ticket. They have my plate number right there, sure, but the make and model shown are wrong. And to make things even more confusing, they’re showing the make and model and colour of my mother’s car. I wouldn’t have been driving her car a month ago, and even if I had it wouldn’t have had my plates on it.

Then I noticed they’ve got a picture. Obviously, I click that.

Sure enough, it shows a car of the same make and colour as my mother’s. And sure enough, it has a license plate one letter different from mine. Where one finds the letter “S” on my vehicle’s plate, there is, quite clearly, a “G” on this imposter.

Part of me wants to just ignore it. I’d love for them to take me to court when they have provided photographic proof that the car in question has a different make, model, and license plate than mine. But instead I’m probably gonna have to stay awake into normal business hours and talk to someone on the phone or something. Almost makes me want to just pay the $35.

I mentioned it only briefly on this site, because I was ill at the time and that took more of my attention, but last year I witnessed an apparently-drunk driver hit a parked car. I reported it to the police at the time, and gave a statement and all that, and figured I’d never have to care about it again. But then, just a month or two ago, I got a subpoena telling me to appear in court. I was surprised to learn that it is apparently common for things to take this long, or longer. I don’t know what I was expected to contribute to the proceedings. If I was expected to pick out the guy in court, I was not confident I would be able to remember what a guy I saw for about four minutes over a year ago looks like (I was, in fact, very confident I would not be able to). But I had planned on going, because that’s what the paper told me to do. And since court is done in the daytime (not like on television), that meant I’d have to be awake in the daytime. It’s terrible.

I booked two nights off work and began adjusting my sleep schedule to minimize how much I’d hate the world. But then, yesterday, the day before I was supposed to go to court, I got a phone message telling me the driver had plead guilty and now I wasn’t needed. I wish I’d been told that week earlier, eh?

Anyway, in the buildup to this, I noticed that, on the night I witnessed the event, I wrote a note in a text file on my desktop and still had it. Even though it’s been a year since I gave the info to the police, I’d hate to delete this, so why not stick it on my website?

It was about 4:50 and I was heading downhill at around 5300 South St. There was a vehicle (a big vehicle, some kind of jeep or suv or something. It was a dark color, perhaps black or dark blue or something, it is hard to tell at night) about three car lengths ahead of me, which had pulled onto the street making a left turn from Queen St. just as I was finishing my delivery nearby. This vehicle was about three car lengths ahead of me, moving the same direction, until it hit a car parked at the right side of the road. The vehicle continued moving forward after the hit, for some distance, but I don’t know if it was trying to continue driving or just if it was rolling after the driver had lost control. When the vehicle stopped, I stopped as well. I approached just as the driver was getting out and going around to the passenger’s side to see the damage to his car. The front wheel on that side was badly damaged and seemed to be nearly coming off.
I asked if he was okay, he said he was. I asked if he had a phone, but he did not answer that, just continued looking at the damage. I did not see any other passenger in his vehicle and he seemed fine. With the damage to his vehicle, I did not think he would be a risk for a Hit and Run, because he would not be capable of the run part. Still, I wrote down his license plate just in case (F** **7). Since I was still working, and since it didn’t seem like I could do anything there, I left to finish my next delivery.
The driver of the vehicle was either a white male, or a very light-skinned brown. He had dark hair, probably brown or black, and (I think) glasses and facial hair. He was wearing light clothes.

And now that that is immortalized on my site, I can get it off my computer. Anyway, as I write this, five hours from when I was due to be at court, I note that I actually have some disappointment that I can’t go. I felt that way too the time I got out of jury duty, but this would actually have been easier even than that. While jury duty would have disrupted my life for a week or more, this was a day or so tops, I assume. It would have been neat to see how things work. Ah well.

I don’t get sick very often, this is true. I am very lucky in that respect. I did note that in the years I was going back to school, I was a lot more likely to get a cold or whatever, but even that just lasted a day or two. And I’m not in school right now. But these last three weeks are, as far as I can remember, the sickest I have ever been in my life. If that isn’t something I should document here on my website, I don’t know what is. So here are the gross details:

Phase One: February 26 to March 4

This was the point when I just felt like it was the usual kind of sickness that comes up every year or two. I had a cough, but I was just going to tough it out until it was over, as I usually do. Although I did note that I had a very sore back, which was making it hard to sleep, but for all I knew, I had pulled a muscle. I couldn’t even be sure the sore back was connected to the cough. There was, I admit, one night while, after making a delivery for work, I drove back to my apartment because I thought I might vomit. I didn’t vomit, though, so I figured it was probably okay. I mean, I had my flu shot. How bad could this be?

Saturday March 4

This was the night when the pain got to be too much even for my patented “ignore it until it goes away” technique. There was a sharp, stabbing pain with any inhalation deep enough to actually fill my lungs, and when I inhaled for a cough, it could cause me to fall over. I not only decided to take the night off of work, but actually went to the hospital for the first time that didn’t involve blood or broken bits in at least fifteen years. I am the sort who hates to burden a hospital with my presence (aka, who feels guilty when a hospital has to do its purpose for me), but I still went in, my pain was that bad. They took me in, did the x-rays, examined me with the various things they have. They gave me pills. In the end I don’t remember exactly what they said I had (there was some pneumonia in there and some other stuff), but the phrase “chest is full of viruses” was part of it. They recommended a kind of anti-inflammatory medicine for me to pick up. I was in and out in under five hours, which seemed good from my understanding of hospital wait times. I admit that getting to the pharmacy to pick up the pills wasn’t fun, but I did it and got home. (As a side-note that I am not about to give its own post, during the Phase One week I witnessed a car accident and while I was in the waiting room this night, a police officer came to take my statement. Made the time go more quickly. I recommend this when you plan hospital visits.)

End of Phase One: March 5

On Sunday the 5th, I just took it easy. I didn’t go into work, and I just lay in bed, in pain, unable to sleep. I was mildly confident that my pills would fix me up, if I could just get some sleep, which is how I usually deal with sickness. But sleep is not coming. I can not stay down for more than an hour at a time, and each session of sleep is full of strange dreams. In one of my dreams I was some sort of starfish-like blob that was part of a hivemind. In another I was a rhino-like animal that was being mutated with some kind of biological modifications and moving in a convoy with other similar animals to some strange goal. If I were told that I was dreaming the viruses’ dreams, I would believe it. It was all very strange and very tiring.

Monday March 6

At about four in the morning I awoke with extreme pain, the worst yet. I considered calling for an ambulance, it was so bad, but instead I made it to the bathroom, where I would be spending a lot of time in the coming days. At this point I began keeping notes on my phone of what was happening. I guess I wanted to be sure that if I died, my last hours would be described. I spend a lot of Monday in the bathroom.

Tuesday March 7

Tuesday is a similar day to Monday (in fact, with the lack of sleep it was essentially the same day) with lots of pain and lots of sitting on the bathroom floor. At one point I did sleep for an hour or so and have a dream in which I had a HUD display on my vision that gave me details about my health. I was disappointed to learn this was not true when I woke up. This is, for the record, the day I start spitting down the drain almost more often than I swallow my own saliva, in the hopes that I will be getting some of the infection out of me every time. Who knows if it helped any.

Wednesday March 8

Wednesday started off in the same way, but at about 9:40 in the morning, something good happened: I vomitted! A reading of my various illnesses catalogued on this site will reveal that I don’t generally consider it good to vomit, but I do consider the vomit here to have been a turning point toward getting better. And, as always, I have marked the date so I will be able to calculate how long my next vomitless streak is. Anyway, having puked, I feel a little better. My notes say that I am starting to find it more possible to lay comfortably in bed. Also this afternoon I go to the grocery store to get some supplies, though I note that the trip leaves me sweating and out of breath. I also noted that four times on Wednesday my body tried to sneeze, but at the sudden inhalation, my lungs felt the great pain and panicked and I was unable to sneeze. Four times.

Phase Three Begins: Thursday March 9 to Saturday March 11

By Thursday the pain in my back was basically gone. The pain in my lung was better, but still present. I could not breathe deeply, but I was definitely improved. I was essentially over the worst of it. But it was still bad. I still could not sleep for any amount of time. And my lungs were still problematic. You know when you suddenly become aware of your breathing and you have to consciously control it for a while until you can forget it and it goes back on the unconscious controls. By this point, I was realizing that I felt like I had been on conscious control of my lungs for a week. It was exhausting. Also during this phase I began trying to cleanse my lungs by initiating deep coughing fits in the hopes that it will bring up what is in my lungs. I do this until I am slumped on the floor, aching in muscles I didn’t even know were involved with coughing. At no point does this ever work, but it feels like the only thing to do, so I keep trying.

Sunday March 12

On Sunday, I got a call from the doctor I had seen a week earlier. They had reviewed my x-rays from my visit and decided to check up on me, and to give me a prescription for anti-biotics. I start taking these pills immediately thinking this time I am for sure going to get better.

The Rest of Phase Three

And so that’s how it was for the second week. I wasn’t in pain anymore, so in my mind I should be better and able to walk around and do things, but nope. I was still dizzy and short of breath. I still went into coughing fits that never seemed to clear my lungs. It wasn’t until Saturday the 18th that I was well enough that I could work (I missed eight shifts in total, and am therefore broker even than usual). Even now I am not at 100%. My prescription has run out, but I went to the pharmacist and was recommended some gross syrup medicine that will hopefully help me chase away the remains of the cough.

Anyway, as I am sure I have already said, this is the most sick I have ever been. I feel like other people probably deal with this sort of thing more often and I am a weakling for buckling under so thoroughly, but I couldn’t help it. This has also been my least productive month in years. Keeping in mind that all the posts that have gone up in this time were scheduled months ago, so this post is the first real writing I have done since February. Even reading was too much for me for most of the month. But I am back on track. Now let’s hope I never ever get sick again.

Today I got my first parking ticket! And oddly, for someone currently employed in the food delivery industry and therefore making several illegal park jobs every night, this happened on my own time. I went into a store for roughly three minutes, only for the store guy to point out the person writing me a ticket. The ticket was issued at 4:21 pm and apparently at 4:00 pm that space becomes a no parking zone. I assume this is a thing to help out in rush hour. Rush hour is one of the many reasons people who go out in daytime on a regular basis are idiots.

Anyway, this is all fair enough. I get away with plenty of parking I shouldn’t at night, so I can take a hit, especially since it was only $25. But as I continued on my way, I noticed that one of the places at which I can pay off the ticked was on my route. I could stop off there and get the ticket paid a mere ten minutes after it had been issued! That would be fun!

I got to the place. There was no parking. There was, however, a truck parked in a No Parking zone. “Hey, if it’s good enough for that guy” I say to myself…

I run inside, but the place has apparently closed about half an hour earlier, so I run back to the car. Parking officials are there already writing me another ticket. Luckily for me, when they see me coming they decide to let me off the hook, so I avoided the humiliation of getting a parking ticket while paying for a parking ticket. But just barely.

Anyway, I don’t have these problem at night. All you diurnal people have too many rules. I paid the thing online and we’re all good now.

(Also, I’m counting this as a post worthy of the PDR vs The Police tag. It’s my site so I can do that if I want to.)

I should definitely mention that I got my first ticket while driving this week (and hopefully last for quite some time to come). I can in no way argue that I was going above the posted speed limit (though I will maintain my belief that maybe the limit should be higher at four in the morning than it is at rush hour), so I don’t feel like I was in any way wronged in getting the ticket. Still would have been nice not to though. Anyway, I paid that thing off today and that is that.

Haiku!

Boston is a place.
I know this ’cause I’ve been told.
Still, who cares though, right?

Apart from that, what have I got going on? More of the same, mostly. The semester is practically over and it felt so short. Short and busy, I guess.