Busted.

Remember how I’m not buying things?  Right, me too.  This morning, I poured myself a tall mug of coffee and left for work with enough time to stop at my favorite place for squandering money, the Bead Monkey.  They rearranged!  There was a much better selection of Swarovski crystals, some new semi-precious stones that I hadn’t seen before (lemon jade is my new favorite!), and I played with some of the precious metals they keep behind the counter – I’m making a gift.  And maybe one for myself.

While I was talking to the super nice lady behind the counter, and we were holding chains up to links, some JERK started honking his horn.  And not just honking, really, but laying on it.  Pretty soon, we decided that it must be an alarm going off.  A lady came in and said it was coming from a nearby building, their security system must have been tripped.  Then another lady came in the door on the other side of the shop, and my stomach sank.  I got that feeling you get when you realize the woman in the distance – so far away, you can just barely make out her features – who is stomping towards you is Your Mother.  I recognized that “building alarm,” and the lady said that it was coming from a black Pathfinder.  I don’t drive a Pathfinder, but not everyone knows cars.

I put two and two together quickly enough and ran out to shut it up.  Not happening.  I started the car.  I stopped the car.  I locked the doors.  I unlocked the doors.  I hung my head, walked back into the store to grab my umbrella.  I mumbled an apology to the poor deaf people and high-tailed it outta there.  There’s a repair shop about 4 blocks from where I was, so I went in that direction.  I learned two things along the way: 1. If you seem to be reclining on your horn, people will pull over and let you pass them; 2. As you pass them, they will give you the dirtiest, most hateful look you can imagine.  The guys at the shop sprang to action and got it to stop.

The icing on this lovely cake was the record rainfall happening the whole time.  After I dropped my car off to be muzzled and muted, I walked 3.5 blocks to work.  I was dry when I started out, and 2 hours after I arrived at work, I was dry again.  Sigh.

We’re still in need of some detective work to uncover the cause of this whole horn problem, and then a solution.  The prevailing theory is that a remote trigger was installed by N, and that my proximity to a cash register is what set it off.