Disaster strikes Help me make it through this funky day BY CAITLIN SHETTERLY

It began on a Monday morning. I was sitting at my kitchen table, unaware that life was anything but becalmed, when I looked up from my work to see my car going down the street on a tow truck. What the . . .?

Of course, street cleaning. Okay. I’m new to he neighborhood and had not even thought about looking at signs, anywhere. Besides, I was parking my car the wrong way around, so I was utterly convinced there weren’t any signs. Which there were. Just behind me. I mean who (other than Dick Cheney) has eyes in their back?

The Portland police were less than impressed with my defense.

Getting your car towed in Portland is like entering some weird mafia movie. First you’re told you can only bring cash — no cards, no checks — and you’re to see some guy named Adam, who has to be called first to meet you somewhere "between Wild Oats and the Post Office." When you go looking in that general vicinity, you don’t actually find any sign, any office, any notice of any kind. Just some weird gate behind which your car waits like a bad dog and a brute of a guy sitting in an 18-wheeler who demands the cash — amount arbitrary at that moment — and then supervises as you drive away. I swear this can’t be legal. No receipt? No address? No piece of paper telling me how to avoid getting my car towed in the future?

Then I dropped a glass jar full of water (toxins-leaking plastics make me nervous) inside the yoga studio. Then I cut my finger on the top of a cat food can as I organized my recycling for Wednesday’s pick up.

Recycling. This, I’ve decided, is another conspiracy most likely run by some covert operation. For starters, if your recycling is not exactly perfect — boxes broken down and cut into 3’x3’ pieces (who actually has time to be getting down on their knees with a razor blade cutting cardboard all Tuesday night?) and then put in paper bags — the whole thing will be rejected. And, if you are unlucky enough to get your recycling left at the curb (as I have been) you are given a full mysterious week to figure out why. I recently went to get a blue bin (this was part of the problem week #1) and paid $5 for it. This should be illegal. If we are meant to recycle, blue bins should be given to everyone no matter what — with specific lists of how and when and why.

Then I "lost" my keys and I spent a good hour and a half panicking and searching all over the Eastern Prom, only to find them dangling from my car door.

Then, over the weekend, I left my luggage in the back of a cab in New York City.

The best and worst part about of having a streak of disaster is that it rubs off on others. You get to share (Here’s where, if I were a complete dork, I would put one of those stupid email smiley faces that I can’t stand).

In the middle of my crises (plural) I bumped into a guy who did a hit and run on a friend of mine after taking her out, smooching her at her doorstep, and suggesting a second date. Okay, this is a public service announcement: Men, we actually believe you when you say this. Don’t smooch and, for Pete’s sake, don’t say you want to get together again if it’s not true. We sit by the phone. We’re like Golden Retrievers when it comes to you — entirely loyal to even the worst bastards (my personal favorites are drug users with commitment issues who are sensitive and entirely self absorbed).

He saw me coming and looked like a very bad dog all of a sudden. He asked, kind of shakily, bag hanging from his slumped shoulders, how she was. To which I said, "great," and gave a big toothy.

"Yeah, I meant to call her . . .’

"Uh-huh." I knew he was fishing.

"Well, what do you think I should say?" he blurted.

Are stereotypes really this accurate? It occurs to me that this communication needs a little breakdown:

PSA SCRIPT, TAKE ONE:

Uninterested Guy: Hi, Peaches? Hi. I had a nice time the other night. I thought about it, though, and I realize that this might not work out for me right now. But thank you for hangin’. So I’ll see you around?

Woman: Gee, thanks, Zonk. I really appreciate your honesty. I’ll catch you later.

Whatever. Guys, use your imagination. I know it’s not easy. But, who knows, maybe she’s not that into you, either.

At the very least you get respect; there are no longer women all over town sticking rusty nails into effigies of you made to look like George Bush.

Mr. Shoulder Slump said he knew I was right and that he felt "reaalllly baaad." Then he left. A few minutes later I received a warm breath on my shoulder. He’s there again, bag hanging from shoulders, "Uh — can you give me her number?"

His week started to seem shitty, too. Good.

In NYC, after I called every precinct in every borough, a cop found my luggage, which had sped away in the trunk of someone named Massoud. When he brought it to me in the middle of the dumping rain I gave him a huge hug. He told me that the driver had been looking through my stuff, trying to find a number for me so that he could return all my precious things. Evidently, somewhere in the Middle East, they teach men how to call women, and even how to search for their numbers.

Caitlin Shetterly can be reached at bramhallsquare@yahoo.com