Mercury Retrograde: The Week My Car, Bike, Computer, MakeUp and Sanity Were Stolen.

Mercury has a horrendous (hilarious in hindsight) impact on my life this time of year. This small planet is to blame when things go haywire. In 2014, I had a rather large episode involving car accidents and 100 mile mountain bike races, and 2016 was one for the record books for several reasons.

While I accomplished some pretty big goals in that year like paying off my student loans, the cosmos decided to throw some sticks in my spokes in 2016. Now that my lawsuit has reached a settlement — a mere 11 months later — I can finally share some details. This post is adapted from my Facebook status on May 23, 2016.

Mercury retrograde is starting in a few days on April 9 so please take precautions: stay inside, surround yourself in bubble wrap, and don’t make any sudden movements.

• Almost 2 weeks ago my car was stolen and along with my road bike, make-up, jewelry, work computer, and pretty much any “thing” I cared about. Why? I had a 16 hour day that started at 5:30 am in North Boulder Wednesday Morning Velo followed by meetings in Downtown Boulder, then a client dinner that evening in Denver. Everything was in my car, even my hair dryer and hair brush since I had to get ready at work. This was two days after getting back from a 12 hour mountain bike race involving a 14 hour drive.
• Valet due to the fact I had nicer items in my car in front of a nicer restaurant on a nicer street in Denver on Larimer and 15th. Don’t eat at Ocean Prime if you want your car to stay safe. I’m now a vegetarian — unrelated.
• 45 minutes into our dinner, the manager comes up and asks “Are you Rachel Scott? Something terrible has happened.”
• Naturally, I think someone died because she won’t tell me what’s up. Go downstairs and a cop tells me my car was stolen when the valet LEFT THE KEYS IN MY CAR UNATTENDED and a “homeless white male” jumped in…and drove off…during rush hour where cars are literally crawling. I still to this day think it’s an inside job. Especially since a known drug ring operates around the corner from the restaurant.
• Get back to table and some over-served drunk asshole licks my ear and whispers something incoherent in front of my boss, two C-suite execs at a Fortune 500 company and my coworkers. I wanted to die and also thought I was in a dream. Nothing has ever happened like that before.
• Realize have no house keys and my husband Kalan is in Colorado Springs, he had to drive up from the Springs and cancel all his clients to get me in the house.
• Dinner NOT taken care of that evening due to a miscommunication. Later filed a complaint the next morning and they take care of it after my scathing review.
• Change locks and garage frequency but garage has been opened several times during the week. Still haven’t figured this one out so we just unplugged it.
• Spent all weekend chasing down receipts, talking with 3 different insurance companies, and accounting for what was lost.
• This leads right into a very busy Startup Week where I had to rent a bike (thank you Full Cycle for hookin’ it up!) to do an event as I was leading the Adventure Track. The bike I originally was going to rent was sold that morning, but luckily, the guys hooked me up with an even better one seconds before my event.
• Finish out Boulder Startup Week on Friday but during that time my credit card was stolen. So I’m down 1 credit card — ugg.
• I attempt to take a picture for the next to last event of the 200 that week and my iPhone just blacks out. Kicks the bucket and it’s only 2 months old.
• Head to Kansas Saturday morning to do a 30-mile mtb race. It’s Kansas, it should be totally easy. I have NEVER bonked so badly in a race and it was more technical than any race I’ve ever done. Went from winning to literally crying on the side of the trail vowing to never race my bike again at least 5 times.

This was the stomping grounds of Steve Tilford — who raced the same race along with his partner. This cycling great lost his life in a tragic crash a few days ago.

• The only reason why I finished is because a) I’m cheap and wanted Kalan’s monies’ worth because my checkbook was also stolen in the car and realized I need to change my checking account number so called the bank to deal with that, b) I was so lost I didn’t know what to do but just stay on trail. After no sleep the night before (explained in next bullet) and about 20 hours of sleep the two weeks prior my body had enough.
• The night before, Kalan had booked us a hotel room called the Midland Railroad Hotel — room 305. Exploring the old hotel and notice they do ghost tours, I asked the front desk woman why and what happened. Turns out a sheriff was thought to have committed suicide but actually murdered in one of the rooms. Room 305. Not a few seconds earlier Kalan literally said this room has to be haunted: the smoke detector went off, some random door to nowhere kept opening and shutting and it just had that vibe, hearing noises etc. Kalan had his own experience but he doesn’t want me to talk about it because you might think he was crazy. Check out the creepy video here:

• After all the stress, my body gave up. Got shingles and have nerve pain all down my legs and lower back. Shingles are no joke. They hurt like a @!#$@#$%$.
• Anyway, we start looking into getting a new car assuming it’s not coming back. You have to wait 2 weeks to give Denver PD time to find it and your belongings before you can begin to process a claim.
• Got a call 5 minutes after I emailed a friend at a dealership to begin the look for a new car that my car was recovered! No details but it was found in a known drug ring near the restaurant! Told to meet the detective at 9 am Monday morning.
• Show up at the impound lot and after assessing the damage determine it needs to be towed instead of driven off the lot. Everything including my floor mats are even gone.
• Attempt to get my car out and had every form of identification I could, but they wouldn’t let me release it without having registration (which was stolen because I had my car copy and a copy in my backpack that I had forgotten about when I was at the car title place attempting to deal with selling a Casita for 4 weeks).
• Drive all the way back to Boulder and go to county clerk (for the 4th time in 6 weeks). Had to get new plates since those were also gone and copy of registration. My transaction won’t go through (not because I have zero ways of making a payment at the moment due to everything being stolen) because there’s a hold with the Department of Revenue.
• Have to get on the phone with them and the County Clerk says it’s going to be at least 2 days before I can get any form of registration. DOR says it should be instant. Fight about this for 2 hours.
• Call Subaru to see about getting car rekeyed. You must PREPAY to do this so there goes $500 bucks (in addition to $1500 of deductibles). Oh and when can I get it done? We’re booked until July but you can come back EVERY SINGLE DAY to see when/if we have time to fit it in.
• Call my the Express Toll since that was stolen, they have to charge me to replace it. Another $15.
• Get back to impound lot and now it’s completely packed — standing room only and there’s only about 100 square feet people can fit in. Someone took a huge grumper in the bathroom adding to the smell of sweat, BO, and sadness.
• Take a number and sat next to a woman crying about to lose her kids to Child Protective Services if she can’t get her car out.
• Another handicapped woman was told to WALK to the gas station 2 miles away in the rain because her car was stolen and impounded with no gas, not even enough to start. I volunteer to go to the gas station for her to get a can of gas since everyone was now waiting about 2 hours.
• Get the gas and then attempt to drive back but a truck went under an overpass that was too low and got stuck! Had to figure out a way to enter the area from another side. Hoped I wasn’t going to get stuck and miss my turn.
• Make it back and luckily (or unluckily) not a single person had moved in line. The crying woman had an expired registration and no way to get to the registration place. I called her an Lyft(attempting to earn some karma points back) because she had zero money and clearly in a rough spot. No thank you, but I’m sure she didn’t have anyone teach her anything growing up about etiquette or manners.
• Some guy STORMS in and freaking out about a back pack. He was just released from jail and if he didn’t get in and out he’d go back. Everyone is pissed and yelling at him to take a number and wait your turn. He literally SHITS on himself right there in the room. Not kidding, wearing shorts, can see everything happening. No words.
• I really only wanted to roll my windows up in my car and they wouldn’t let me back to do that. Storm rolls in and pours rain. Oh well, hopefully it washed away the “criminal smell” from it.
• Finally get my registration to the woman, and I’m out the door in less than 1 minute after that.
• Still no idea when I’ll be able to buy a road bike (I had sold my back up bike the week prior and my cross bike a couple months prior), or my make up (second time I’ve replaced bc my makeup bag was stolen last year at a work event), and have to file a separate claim for my work computer.
• Shingles suck, did I say that yet?
• Hopefully this is the last of it (I’ve paid dearly for that Andes mint that I stole when I was 4 years old)….until next time Mercury appears to travel backwards through the sky. Here’s to a much more relaxing June — now I need a glass of wine and a 3 day nap.

This was nearly a year ago to the day that this mess started happening. I finally get to recap it. There are actually 4 retrogrades this month (god help us) and are already in the midst of a Venus retrograde. Here’s to hoping that Mercury Retrograde impacts every other year. Otherwise, best of luck and I’ll talk to you after May 3rd.