Pride goeth before the fall, stomach they say.

For a while there, information pills I was having a proud day.

I had a DMV appointment at 10:40. By the time I waded through two jammed parking lots and landed out on Glenoaks, it was 10:52. But no problem, I sailed right through check-in, waited 10 minutes and was called to the window.

Bada-boom, bada-bing, I was out of there in 10 minutes with my license task done, the van registered – and instructions to get it smogged before I could get the full reg paperwork.

Straight to the smog shop near my house. The taciturn, ruddy smog-shopkeeper plugged the van into his gizmos, ran it through the paces and – bazoop – shot my PASS readings straight to Sacramento by wire. Happy day.

I jumped in. I had to wait a couple of minutes for the guy who had parked his truck abreast my tail to back out, but when he did, I managed to back out safely without nailing the gas pumps.

Quick head check, no traffic. I eased forward to the right around the island into a THOROUGHLY HORRENDOUS CRUNCHING NOISE and hit the brakes.

Yep. Peached it. Boy, I wish I had a recording of that sound.

I sideswiped a bollard at the end of the pump island. Hadn’t seen it below the level of this monster’s windows, and before I knew what I had done, it was too damn late.

The door still works properly but, well, I guess I know what I’m doing this weekend:

Pulling more stuff off of Xylovan’s dead twin at the junkyard. That’s what.