i just got back from a movie. well, not so much a movie as my attempts to get to a movie.

it all began during our soccer game wherein a player from the other team stepped on my big toe with his cleated foot. ow, yeah. but i didn't think much of it until i caught said toe in the grass, which pulled the toenail up, which hurt like ... well, many long-winded, unsavory phrases best not repeated in mixed company. i took my shoe off and discovered it: throbbing, painful, and purple. oh, a beautiful color of purple. the entire nail. ow.

anyways, this is merely secondary information to the story, so i'll on with it.

after the game, i remembered that i had purchased tickets to one of the films in the Women and Film Indie Fest tonight. i called up Sam but she was busy with a friend. i asked Mary but she was pooped out. i went through the list and found everyone to be too tired or previously engaged. i even read them a review to whet their appetites:

"A digital feature with a classic punk spirit, GodAss is a dark coming-of-age comedy about how having a gay father can be the least of a girl's problems. Watching her idol give himself fellatio is hardly the most disturbing event Teri has encountered growing up. GodAss follows Teri's flight from her unbalanced family and secluded punk-rock circle in South Carolina to New York, where she is determined to bring her zine to a more sympathetic audience. But the Big Apple is also home of her estranged father. In meeting him, Teri discovers that the secret to confronting her troubled young life is interlocked in understanding her gay father. Starring Fred Schneider ( of the B-52s) and Julianne Nicholson, with Anna Grace (Girlstown, I Shot Andy Warhol), Tina Holmes (Edge of Seventeen) and David Ilku (Liquid Sky), with cameos from underground filmmakers Bill Plympton and Sarah Jacobson, and a soundtrack by Lunachicks, Sleepyhead, Hammerbrain and many more."

all said it sounded lovely but, no, they must decline. my own fault for waiting until the last minute to round up a crew. no worries. i'm perfectly happy watching a flick on my own. and maybe i'd find some cute intellectual in line who was also flying solo to give my extra ticket to.

so i hopped on my (ahem) trusty Vespa and sped off into the direction of the theater with plenty of time to catch a nasty meal at whatever nasty fast food joint presented itself first.

but then ... sputter, sputter, cough, cough ... the Vespa quit on me. it has, of course, be doing this a lot lately. so i wasn't entirely surprised. no less annoyed but not surprised. luckily, i knew how to fix it: push it down a hill, drop it into second gear and pop in the clutch. unluckily, i was in a particularly flat part of San Francisco and no amount of push starting on flat land was going to do me any good.

this is also where the little addendum tale at the top about my blackened toe comes in. pushing a four-hundred pound scooter (Vespas are much heavier than they look) up and down the street for an hour with a busted toe is really not what i call a good time.

oh, i'm getting ahead of myself. right. so yeah, i pushed the scooter quite nearly half way there before the thing kicked over and started. i actually think i said quite loudly, "THANK GAWD!" because i was in no mood to drag said hunk of metal all the way back to my house under my own power. and i scooter off to the film, still with time to spare.

the seventh street came along and ... sputter, sputter, cough, cough ... the Vespa died on me again. and on another particularly flat part of San Francisco, no less. this time, though, my luck was even thinner. i spent twenty, maybe thirty minutes, pushing that stupid thing up and down the sidewalk. i snuck into a parking garage and pushed the heavy ass piece of junk up and down the ramps. i cursed it. i kicked it. i begged it to start. and finally, i gave up.

fine.

shit.

i'll push your stupid ass home.

but then i'm selling you to a yuppie and buying a BMW motorcycle.

and i started pushing it home. all the long ass, who knows how many miles, way home. i got frustrated after four blocks, my toe throbbing, and decided to give it one last shot. push, second gear, clutch out .... nothing. fuck it. how about first gear. push, first gear, clutch out ........ sputter ..... sputter, sputter ... a little gas ... a lot of smoke ... AND IT'S RUNNING!

now, i know i said, "thank gawd!" this time. but there was no way i was going to see the movie. i could have made it. a little late, sure, but i still would have taken in the flick that had instigated all this trouble. but if that bike hadn't started when i came out of the theater, i would have been twice as far away. i was going home, or as close as i could get, while the bike was still running.

so now, here i am. pissed as all hell first that my bike is a piece of shit and second that i missed the movie that i'd already paid for and at which i was destined to meet the cute intellectual who would have provided me with years of happiness and sex.

anyone want a scooter? how about a throbbing big toe?