We’ve got our car back now. Just picked it up this evening. The final cost was around $1700. The insurance appraised the damage at $1000, and we have a $300 deductible, so we ended up paying the difference: $1000. Yeah. So now our savings is significantly diminished. Again. I hate cars. I hate money. And it took JeT five hundred phone calls to get the insurance company to fax over the appropriate document to the shop so that we didn’t have to pay the whole thing up front and then be reimbursed. They were all “sure, we’ll fax that over.” Then the next day JeT would call the shop and there all “Um, no. No fax yet.” Another phone call (different rep answers): “Oh, yeah. We have all the info we need. We’ll totally fax that right over.” The next day same thing. Seriously. It’s like they get paid extra for every time we have to phone in to give them info they already have and to ask them something they told us they’d do nine times. /rant

I’m glad this week is over. And now, some fun:

Overheard Misheard on the red line (at Park Street):
Crazy man: Get off the train!! I’M ON A MISSION!!!

Turns out he wasn’t really crazy. He was just on the phone, yelling to someone who was (presumably) on the train, and he wasn’t saying “I’m on a mission” but rather “I’m going to miss you.” As in, if you don’t get off the train, we won’t be able to meet up, because you’re going to be on the train as it pulls out of the station. But still. The misheard version is way funnier. And more succinct.

Overheard on Church Street, Cambridge:
Man exiting Starbucks to no one in particular: It’s a Haaahvahd scaaahf! It’s a Haaaahvahd scaaahf!!! (exaggerated accent and arrogant head waggle)

At first I thought he was saying it to the woman going in to Starbucks, but she wasn’t really wearing a Harvard scarf. Then as he crossed the road, he just kept repeating it to every passerby he saw. It was too cold to stop to observe him further, and I was running late for work. I picture him trying out other Boston-area accents and testing them on the streets of Cambridge. How many micro-regional accents can he road test before he gets carted away? Hurrah for street linguistics!

My favorite crazy/surreal moment in the city happened last summer: I’m on the bus, going to work, right? I’m thinking about zombies, like you do, and wondering what the best way to fend them off in the city would be. Where would be the best gathering spot for survivors (somewhere with beer, right? We were riding past the Squealing Pig at that point, so that may have influenced my thinking a bit), what the best weapons would be (I’m sure the geese wandering around the Fenway wouldn’t mind sacrificing themselves for the cause), etc. When what do my overactive-imagination-fueled eyes see? This dude lurching and lurching himself across the sidewalk right in front of us, and no one seems to notice that there’s totally a zombie just walking around Boston. And then, I think “I’m totally going to be the first person to die, because I’m the one that sees them first, and no one is going to listen to me until it’s too late and they see me get eviscerated.” And then the guy comes into better view, and he’s not a zombie at all, but actually someone with some sort of disability.