Had an adventure and felt like sharing...keep in mind I'm a verbose writer with a very limited understanding of grammar and proper punctuation.
On Monday, I had the fun of taking the American Pediatric Boards at a hotel by O'Hare. For those of you that don't know, it is a 335 question test divided into two 3.5 hour installments designed to test my knowledge of pediatric medicine that took place in one of the least accessible areas of Chicago. The test costs over $2000 (not covered by work) and despite the price tag utilizes very high tech scantron sheet and #2 pencils (of which I had to provide myself!). It is a grueling test of minutia and details that have little to do with the true, day to day grind of managing sick kids. I've done a poll and nobody I've ever worked with has seen Kaiser-Fleischer rings first hand, yet they always appear on standardized exams. Needless to say, it was quite painful. In graphic terms, it felt like a non-sedated colonoscopy minus the lubricant that lasted 7 hours to the tune of two grand that my medical insurance refused to cover because the only point of the test was to prove I was indeed full of crap.
Luckily, the exam took place at a hotel which meant a bar was nearby. As soon as I had bubbled in my last answer, I ran to enjoy a frosty pint of cold beer. In a matter of minutes the bar was full of pediatricians lamenting over the horrors of the highly expensive test. Afterwards, I suffered through rush hour traffic to a friend's apartment for more libations and pizza and the most excellent in crap cable TV, "Blade:Trinity". After a very strong margarita, I passed out to Wesley Snipes sword fighting Dracula with Chemical Brothers playing in the background (it was most awesome). I awoke at 4am in a daze and felt the need to get up and drive home. I stepped out in the bitter cold and looked across the street to a vacant spot which should have contained my car - a 1996 Acura Integra with a nice sized, rusted dent in the front driver side panel. It wasn't there. I walked up and down the street hoping I had simply misplaced it. I was still in a sleepy daze with added bewildered at my missing car. After calling the local impound to see if it got towed, I was told that I needed to know the liscence plate number for that. Umm...I'll have to wait until I get home. I was locked out of my friends condo building and decided to take the "L" back to my place. Half way back to my place, I realized the closest stop to my apartment was the 47th and MLK stop - not exactly the best place to be at 5am on a Tuesday morning. I figured with my car probably stolen, the karmic odds of me getting mugged should be fairly low. That didn't stop me from speed walking the half mile between the 47th stop and my apartment. I would have run, but I didn't want to draw too much attention to myself.
Meanwhile, Emily had gotten up at 5 am and couldn't fall back asleep. She decided to see if Micah had come home or slept at his friend's house (which is does occansionally when he goes out for drinks with him). No Micah but there was a voicemail on Emily's phone, which is weird because normally he would have just left a text. After listening to the voicemail explaining the allegedly stolen car, she figured there was no point in trying to go back to sleep.
Once I got to my apartment, we called the police and confirmed there was no record of the car being towed. We made a quick inventory of items in the car: Elijah's car seat, my mp3 player, my phone charger, my work bag, etc. Nothing of serious importance...except what was in my work bag. Just some snacks and a bottle of water to keep me hydrated during the exam...oh, and my US passport. I'm headed to a conference tomorrow in Vancouver and you can't come back into the grand US of A without a passport. Mine was in my work bag, in my car, that was just stolen. Great. I immediately being freaking out that my trip to Vancouver has just been cancelled... As it turns out, you can get same-day passport service in Chicago! You just need to fill out several forms, get passport photos taken, and hand over a sizable sum of money. The best part was the waiting room in the federal building; before entering you are required to turn off (not airplane mode, but completely turn off) your phone. The only source of entertainment was a flat screen TV with the weather channel on mute. I submitted the paperwork, we went to a pub for lunch and several beers, and three hours later I had my new passport. I was actually quite impressed - a government institution came through in a pinch and got something done in less than 24 hours.
As for my car, I've filled a report with the police and informed my insurance. If the reports on the nightly news are true, it's most likely in pieces scattered about in some chop shop. She was taken out before her time - a casualty of immorality and economic hard times. She will be missed! (Cue montage of photos of me cruising down the road in my Acura...)
Micah
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