Dinner and a rather unfortunate show

Disclosure: I have partnered with Cricket Wireless as a 2014 Blog Ambassador. All opinions are my own.

I have so much to say, I’m just going to get started. This post will be quite scattered and off in so many different directions, so… I hope you stay until the end because I promise I have something to say. Maybe.

I went out to have dinner last week with my husband and a good friend. Juan and I were in the car when she parked her truck. We had been in the car for most of the evening actually. Juan was trying to wrap up a conference call that seemed to be lasting forever so I decided to join our friend inside for dinner while he finished. To be realistic, I don’t think my presence in the car was actually helping anyone. As a matter of fact, I was being quite annoying. My eyes still hurt from all the eye rolling I was doing while he sat in the passenger seat trying to pay attention to what was being said.

The call kept going, and going, and going… so we settled on having dinner at a cute, semi-hidden Greek restaurant located in Houston’s Montrose/Westheimer area. This area of town is well known for being a pretty creative place, a lot of free thinkers, hippies if you will, or as Juan likes to say sometimes, “all these bicyclists that are just in my way.” You can’t really tell whether the area is thriving or declining most of the time. It seems to be one of the few communities in Houston that always stays the same. Or maybe that’s just Houston in a nut shell? A city that’s always changing, and always staying the same.

Nonetheless, I was enjoying my conversation with our friend (about 30 minutes later) when Juan walked in looking all flushed and ready to change what we were talking about completely. We had ordered for him since he was taking a while to come inside. Just as our dinner was being brought to the table the waiter walked over and tapped Juan on the shoulder. He looked very distraught and asked Juan “what do you drive?” It was an odd question, so naturally we all looked confused. Juan pointed in the direction of the parking lot, and before he could finish his sentence the waiter was waving him to get up and walk to the entrance of the restaurant.

“Is that your car?,” the waiter asked.

It was.

To our surprise it was hanging off the backend of a tow truck.

What the hell?!?

We dashed outside and quickly confronted the wrecker driver. He was really quite rude. Or in my honest opinion, long story short, he was an idiot. Here I was, yelling at him, arguing that we were eating inside and not parked illegally, while he just continued to rant about how Juan had walked off the property before going inside to join us. Apparently, that’s reason enough to tow your car in that parking lot. I stepped outside to call the wrecking company and express my dissatisfaction.

By this point I was nearly foaming at the mouth from my anger, yelling into the telephone, while the person on the other end just dismissed everything I had to say. As it turns out, the person on the other end was actually the same tow truck driver who had argued with me in the parking lot and picked up our vehicle erroneously from the beginning. He just happened to be using an Indian accent to act like he was someone else. Really. I’m serious.

And yes, I was “that” woman. Standing in my heels in the parking lot of this restaurant, ready to devour, chew and spit this guy out, over the phone. Hell, anyone in my way really. The only human being brave enough to try and tame this rabid panther was my husband. I have to give him credit for trying to calm me down. He stood there looking at me, asking me if I was coming back inside. Finally, I found my way back to the table, but all I could do was glare at my food. I no longer had an appetite. When my phone rang, I quickly answered. It was my best friend calling and I knew a quick rant away from the table would help me move past my frustration.

Success! I told her about what had just happened, and almost instantly my ears were no longer raging hot. I was ready to move past the incident. I could now enjoy what was left of my food. I still have no idea how some of that dinner actually tasted, but I did manage to rejoin the conversation and eat my dinner so as to not be rude. Our friend was a very good sport while this all played out. She knows me quite well now.

So now here’s my crazy segue to what our initial conversation was about to begin with.

We were talking about women in coding, the new programs out to help women learn and practice computer coding, and how at younger ages women and girls are now being engaged by these opportunities. That’s when we were interrupted by Juan when he finally joined us for dinner.

Coincidentally, did you know there are coding classes being taught by women for women? The simple notion of that reality makes me giddy. I myself will need a terminology book just to begin to even understand coding, but I am definitely excited. I may just have to teach myself the basics.

Still, I can’t believe I almost allowed that one person driving the tow truck to ruin a great dinner and conversation. I almost missed out on learning about something I could potentially be passionate about.

In fact, my goal now is to learn and build an app of my own. I haven’t come up with a genius idea just yet, but if I ever do I hope you will all download it and share it far and wide. Even if it is just an app of a cat sitting in a cute basket licking her paw every time you swipe the screen, I will put something together.

I am quite an app fanatic, so for making it to the end of this post, I am rewarding you with this app for coding. According to the reviews, this is the must-have app if you are interested in getting started in this industry.