Only, it got complicated. And thus the long version of the story has me walking back to where my car was parked in a stall in the dealership lot (in search of my insurance card – for the loaner), to find that the tow truck driver had scratched the hell out the passenger side. A representative from Tow Jam (totally not kidding) came out, spent many inarticulate phrases telling me that the truck driver could NOT have been responsible. The down-to-the-metal chunks out of the paint were…wait for it… door dings. And the series of scratches on the wheel well? They must have been there before.

“If the driver hit something,” he explained, “there would be many more scratches.”

“If there driver had not hit anything, there would be no scratches AT ALL.”

It went on like that for a while. He talked to me like I was an idiot. I calmly told him he was effing nuts. I even shared with him the heartwarming tale of sniffing around my car in search of the gas leak earlier that very afternoon, with my face within inches of the now scratched-to-hell door panels, seeing no evidence of the current and appalling ruination. He remained unmoved. So we both took pictures. His photo album will be a bit thinner than mine; he took pictures of only one door panel because, if he gathered evidence of the whole show, no one would buy his story.

Then, when I was about ready to fall apart if I did not go home – where no one could break any more promises or talk to me like I was the intellectual equivalent of a box of hair – right that very second, it was revealed that there wasn’t actually a loaner car to be had. And the rental car that would have taken its place was given away while I was trading witticisms with Mr. Tow Jam. They’d have one in oh, maybe an hour or so, if I wanted to go wait at the Enterprise office. Near to tears, I texted the Dork Lord, Please come get me. He arrived twenty minutes later – pissed.

“Calm down,” I said, patting his arm as his head spun round in circles looking for someone to kill.

“No. They aren’t treating you how you deserve to be treated.”

He stalked off toward the Service Center and I put on a solemn face. But it was really hard not to smile. Even with all that overdone hype about white horses, spell-breaking kisses and climbs up long braids of hair to the tops of very high towers, being rescued is still totally underrated.

“I just want to see what it’s all about.”

“I know what it’s all about: bad acting and teen vampire love.”

“Snob.”

There just so happened to be nothing else On Demand in HD (because in this household we don’t WATCH programs in regular definition. Ahem.) that wasn’t entirely too serious, so I conceded. Fine. I would watch it. But I wouldn’t like it!  And I didn’t. I didn’t hate it, but it very well may have been the biggest piece of cinematic cheese I’d ingested in years – and I watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on a startlingly regular basis.

Also, VAMPIRES DON’T SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT, THEY BURST INTO FLAMES AND EVERYONE KNOWS IT!

Last summer, I picked up the first Twilight book and within 30 pages, put it back down. It was bad writing and that’s all there was to it. Yeah, yeah, I understand that it’s a very story driven kind of series, and that you can become deeply invested in this forbidden blood-sucking romance, but it was bad and I felt insulted by it. So when I saw my friend Amy’s Facebook status reference her most recent read being about teen angst and vampire love, I immediately rushed to provide intervention. But before I could save Amy from herself, she dropped what has to be the most honest and compelling pro-Twilight review out there (and this shit should go on the book’s back cover):

Speaking of mad, I want to quickly address the last post and the number of you who are SO.UNHAPPY. about the last line. Friends, I cannot imagine any of you being around this long and still taking me so seriously that you’d get upset by that. Was it smug? Oh, yes. Overly so. Because it was tongue-in-cheek and meant to be silly. Jeez louise. Do I literally mean that my big-headed boyfriend is better than all the other men out there? Um, no. If your man is being a twerp, gimme a holler and we can talk about the time mine announced that marriage sounds like a really awful idea – right before the lights went down in a movie theater. At that moment, my boyfriend was not better than anyone’s boyfriend and I seriously questioned the dedication it took to sit through Terminator: Part Christian Bale for such a man. Or about the time we moved and I did all (ALL!) the unpacking while he futzed around with computer cords. Look, I’m in a human relationship. If some days I feel like crowing, there are plenty of days when I feel like issuing karate chops to sensitive parts. It’s funny, because I was in the middle of writing a big old essay about the harder, not-so-cheery parts of my relationship, but hadn’t posted it for fear it was too negative. Now I’m wondering if that’s really more up the collective alley. 

Food for thought, I suppose.

Oh, yeah, I limped. After what could have been as many as 75 trips down three flights of stairs and then UP three more flights of stairs, my quads and calves were a disaster, and after thirty minutes of not moving, they were pretty stubborn about getting going again. I promised them ice cream, and that seemed to do the trick.

En route to ice cream, I looked up at the boards and saw that my flight had been delayed again and set my jaw. I would not have at total breakdown at the airport. I just wouldn’t. But oh, how I wanted to. I was tired, in pain, and the five-and-a-half-hour meeting I’d sat through earlier in the day wasn’t what you’d call invigorating.

Heather: I just want to come home.
Dork Lord: I know, baby.
Heather: Now they’re saying there’s a crew change. I’ll never leave! I will have to live in the airport and eat McDonald’s. FOREVER.
Dork Lord: That’s not too bad!

Aw, loving a man who loves fast food. I should have suspected I’d get absolutely zero sympathy for a diet based on red meat and fake cheese (to him, it’s heaven in a foil lined wrapper). But that’s what I wanted. Sympathy. And a hug. And to be home with climate control and my shoes off. By the time I climbed into my car at the Dallas airport and headed home, the Boy was already gone for the evening, off to watch the Stanley Cup Finals. I was a little disappointed – that hug would have done the trick. But when I walked through the apartment door, I saw that in his place, he’d left behind a dozen long stem red roses and I thought, Who needs a stinkin’ hug, anyway?