Oh, to be innocent.

I think I'm strong enough to post now. I was up all night (seriously, because it's hard to fall asleep in a warm bath; you keep breathing water when you go under) with food poisoning from Denny's. So here's what happened:

As we were closing the store last night there was a guy walking around the parking lot. Ivan noticed him, as he was acting erratically, but we didn't really think there was anything too curious about it. So we closed the store and around 9:25 we walked out and he's walking away from my car. He was casual, but definitely leaving my car. In the corner of the parking lot was a white car with its lights on. As he walked by the car, it turned and followed him. It was as he was walking out of the parking lot that I got close enough to my car to realize the lock was all messed up. I start screaming "someone call 911! my phone's dead; call 911! He got into my car!" Ivan called 911 and my manager got in his car to see if he saw them but he said they disappeared. After Ivan got off the phone with the operator he jumped in his car to circle some more and see if he could find them and I called Christen to let him know what was going on. I was freaking, shaking and crying. The three cop cars showed up immediately -- that's never happened to me. While they were taking all the information down, Ivan came back to say that he had found a similar car with someone looking like our guy in the passenger seat parked but running in an apartment complex 2 blocks from the store. Two white people just sitting in a similar car in the middle of a predominately-black neighborhood -- the chances were slim that it was a different car. Two of the cops went to check it out and the third -- the main one -- kept taking the info and getting more specifics. Then Ivan and I went to ID the guy. He's who knew all the specs -- height, clothes, make and model of the car ... I couldn't even tell you what race the dude was. I could have recognised his walk, but I do that with everyone. He admitted it, and they charged him with attempted burglary of a conveyance -- but it gets better. Evidentally once they got him booked they found out that he had given a false name. He had two outstanding warrants, one for grand theft auto and the other for aggravated assault with a discharged firearm. Not only that, but instead of being 21 like he said, he's 18 with 5 or 6 counts of grand theft auto, possession of burglary tools, assault with a firearm .... hopefully no more slaps on the wrist for him. His driver was a 16-year-old girl with no priors, so they let her off on R&R but they're still charging her; she just didn't get booked.

So this was the one who didn't get away. The summer before last my car got broken into (my old car, the '94 Sentra) while I was staying in one of those college apartment complexes and there was nothing anyone could do about it. They got my crappy 10-year-old cd player and the took my ashtray, which had some change in it. Now I have an '05 Corolla with a $400 Alpine stereo. My windows are tinted dark, so you can't see the stereo, but you also can't see that little red flashing light that is supposed to pretend I have an alarm system. By next week, come hell or high water, I will have an alarm system. I would have gone to Toyota today if it weren't for being sick. This was just one more thing pushing me to find another job.

After all the hoopla Christen and I went to that crappy Denny's on Fowler to have breakfast for dinner and calm down, and I have another reason to not go there anymore. I wouldn't have bothered but Perkins was closed. I spent 2:30-10:00 in the bathroom with diarrhea so bad that there was even a lot of blood. (I know you wanted to hear about that). I thought I'd have to go to the hospital. I broke down and had Christen get me some meds because I couldn't lay down. I filled the bath with warm water to relax my muscles because my whole body was spasming, but one tend to go under when sleeping in a bathtub. I got 10 minutes here and there but not any true sleep, but I got some sleep between 10:30 and 12:30. So I'm good. I'm still having problems, but I'm hungry and that's a good sign. I'm going to try some wheat saltines and see how I do.

Anywho, so that was my night from hell. Tonight if I can stay out of the bathroom I'm going bowling with Christen and Ivan. Wish me luck!