24

Dammit!

“I’m federal agent, Jack Bauer, and today is the longest day of my life.”

One of my all time favorite TV shows was 24. From Season 2 until like Season 6 every episode was a nail biter. I used to work at a restaurant in the West Village, and Kiefer Sutherland used to eat brunch there. Whenever he came in the servers would do the 24 countdown and we’d label the tickets “Jack Bauer.” It was always pretty funny. At that restaurant celebrities always came by for brunch like DiCaprio, Bundchen, Bono, and Lou Reed. But Jack Bauer always wanted some off the menu cucumber salad thing. It was weird.

Anyway, this blog post isn’t about the show but rather a 24 hour period last week. From Thursday to Friday there was hell. It started off with our gelato machine acting up. It’s a simple machine in terms of assembly, but when something goes wrong there’s always a long list of things to go through. The machine would randomly stop whether before a batch or during it. And since there’s gelato in it I can’t just stop and take it apart. So I just have to keep resetting it until it finishes. On Thursday it was something manageable. I rode my bike home for lunch that day and was playing with our dog Clyde when I saw this awful rash. I dropped Jenny at the store and brought Clyde to the vet. Apparently he had clogged glands and releasing them wasn't a pleasant site. I felt bad for the boy. After hanging out with him for a bit I went back to the store and the gelato machine was still acting up. So I had to sit there and juggle what are my next steps.

Come Friday I decided to divert all my energy into finishing the Thanksgiving preorders. And that was hell. Imagine every time you start up your car to go to work and the engine shuts off every 10 feet. Sometimes the engine would restart right away or in 20 minutes. But with the situation you are in you just have to keep doing this until you get to work, and there’s no AAA to call. That was me Friday with in between batches talking to our technical people. I was so stressed out. Because of that I figured to just go for a bike ride to clear my head. I zig zagged around Bloomfield, Glen Ridge, and Montclair to get back home to enjoy a delicious turkey sandwich with BBQ chips. I usually ride up Watchung and with specific blocks I am watching every car in case they swing their doors open since it’s such a narrow street. And once I passed those blocks, I assumed I was in the clear. Of course that’s when it happens. In slow motion I see a truck door open and I just couldn’t break in time. All I remember is hitting my head on the pavement and thinking, “shit, that hurt.” Then I remember trying to stand up and rolling over to the side like a UFC fighter that was just knocked out. It was like an out of body experience.

As I’m sitting on the road I’m remembering back when Liam Neeson’s wife, Natasha Richardson, died because she hit her head and didn’t get it checked out. While I was there in the ambulance they kept asking me if I wanted to go to the hospital and while I had a headache I didn’t feel anything extreme. By this time Jenny was there and told me I should get checked out. And after being at the hospital and everything being clear, I must say I’m pretty lucky. I’ve heard of people getting into that type of biking accident and it being a lot worse. I was Jack Bauer-level lucky at least in that moment.

Fast forward to Monday and we’ve been trying to get the gelato machine fixed. It took 5 hours and 2 false moments where we thought it was fixed, but nada. So we had to send out for parts and hopefully that fixes the issue. I mean our gelato machine is from 2010 and it’s in great shape overall but things always break down. With it being Thanksgiving week I don’t know how quickly the parts will come in and be installed. It’s not something I can do on my own unless I want to tempt my luck with being electrocuted. That’s happened to me before with our freezer (twice!) and I’d rather sit this one out. So I’m guessing we will have to push All Star Weekend back a week. I’m sorry about that. The gelato machine just couldn't break down right at the end of the year, lol? Well, I will use this week to rest. I feel like Jack Bauer after he was freed from the Chinese. I can’t really look at screens for long as it bothers my eyes, so I’ll put some eye covers on and listen to some Season 2. See you soon.