Unexpected

So, it's Friday the 13th.

You know...

The day bad things happen?

Let's just go over what's been happening so far.

I was in an accident last month. The car was fixed. Then it wasn't, because the electrical went kablooey. Then it got fixed. Then it blew up in a cloud of white smoke. Then it got fixed. Then we went ON VACATION, where the car died AGAIN, leaving us stranded in the Middle Of Nowhere, with toothless hillbillies offering to buy me a margarita at 11 o'clock in the morning. Then we got to ride in a tow truck for 7 hours.

All that, and it wasn't even Friday the Thirteenth... yet.

SO today, you can imagine that I am, perhaps, just a bit gun shy.

And when the garage, the one that's fixing the van (for the 4th time this month), called me, you can believe that I answered with fear and trepidation.

And then they put me on hold.

And then they said that the Account Manager needed to talk to me.

And then I got that nervous sweat that positively gushes out of your armpits (you know, the really smelly stuff?) when stress hits hard.

And then the Account Manager got on the phone, and I was prepared for all sorts of things, like "We need you to bring the courtesy car back Right This Minute", or "We finally figured out that YOU were the one that caused the accident in the first place, so the insurance isn't going to cover it", or "You should have noticed that something was wrong BEFORE the head gasket blew while you were climbing the Grapevine 300 miles into your vacation last week, so... we're not going to fix it", to "Well, we looked at your van, and it's not repairable"

Yes, all those things went through my head.

What I wasn't expecting:

"Hi, the oddest thing. We just got a re-imbursement for your deductible payment from your insurance company. I called them to make sure it wasn't an accounting error, but they insist that you are entitled to have your deductible paid back to you. So there's a check here in my office for $500, made out to you. Can you come in today to pick it up?"

I couldn't make it in today. I'll pick up the check on Monday.

And besides. It's Friday the 13th. A piano probably would drop out of the sky and land on me as soon as I touched that money, if I picked it up today.