NatrlBornThrllr
03-09-2005, 05:52 PM
I drove home from Maggie's lil' city yesterday. Well, actually, I started my drive home on Monday afternoon, and I got home exactly 36 hours later. You have to realize, this is a drive that I made in 16 hours on my way there, so 35 hours...there has to be a story, right? You bet your ass there is:
At around 4:00 (EST) on Monday afternoon, I packed up my stuff (by that I mean I scooped my pile of clothes up off the floor and threw them into the back seat of my car). I told Maggie goodbye as she headed off to work, hopped in my car and set out on a trip that, by my calculations, would get my home just in time to take my Tuesday morning midterm.
I spent about 10 minutes lost in Charleston, because one-way streets are a bitch when you're trying to follow directions backwards. However, I ended up getting on the freeway, only to be greeted by a bit of traffic (nothing bad, I mean I'm used to Houston traffic, which I'm certain doesn't exist anywhere else...but it was traffic nonetheless).
Once I got away from Charleston, traffic cleared up and I was on my way. Until I hit Georgia. Let me preface this by saying that on the way there, I drove through a snow storm for about 80 miles outside of Atlanta. Once I got into the good ol' ATL, I noticed that their freeways aren't made for rain. They get really slick, and leave a lot of standing water. Yup, you guessed it...it rained for my entire trip through GA and AL. And I don't mean a slight drizzle, I mean I thought I was driving through the goddamn apocalypse. Any time I got up around 70, my car would take it upon itself to hydroplane from lane to lane due to GA's shitty freeway system. So I was restricted to 60mph or so for a long stretch.
So, in all of this rain, I stopped for gas. You have to understand...my sandals, I've owned and worn them religiously for years now (since high school). The soles, they're practically gone. Slick shoes plus a wet, smooth surface...accident waiting to happen. It was raining, so as I jogged back to my car I ate it. My hand was all scratched up (on top, not on the palm...don't ask me how that happened), and my snappy pants were wet. So I went inside and changed into some basketball shorts, and I was on my way.
So, when you're restricted to a slow speed due to rain or traffic or whatever, what do you do once the obstruction clears up? If you're on a schedule that would have barely gotten you home in time for a midterm, you speed the fuck up...that's what you do. So, that's what I did. I was cutting through the Mississippi night at a high rate of speed. Their freeways, they like to put trees in as a median. They also don't use streetlights. This means two things: 1) You can haul as much ass as you want because there are no cops coming your direction on the other side of the road, and 2) It gets really, really dark.
I'm driving along, well into the triple digits without a car on the road. I come up on a hill, not a really tall one but one just high enough that your headlights are in the air and off the road. Fortunately for me, right over this hill is a super sharp curve. I don't mean a little bend in the road, I mean a good 60-65 degree curve. I don't know if any of you have ever hit a sharp curve while going in excess of 110 mph, but there's one thing that runs through your mind: "Holy hell, this is going to suck."
Sure enough, it sucked. I knew hitting my brakes would send me out of control, so I tried to hug the road. That wasn't working, so I tapped my brakes and sure enough, I went spinning out of control at 95mph or so. I ended up doing a 360 and coming to rest (60-0 in under 1.5 seconds, mind you...this was no pansy accident) in a mud-filled ditch at 1:30 am on a lonely, dark stretch of freeway. Having gone off-roading with my buddies numerous times, I knew how to get myself out. I did...and I crossed the freeway to the other shoulder.
The damage: I didn't fucking know. It was that dark out. Without my hazards on, I couldn't see my car. I knew that I had a flat tire, I could feel that as I crossed the freeway to the side with a shoulder. So after collecting myself in my front seat for a few minutes, I popped my trunk and got out my spare. Then I got my jack. Then I realized that I didn't have the piece needed to rotate the jack and lift the car. So I jumped around and tried to stop a passing car. 15 minutes later, in the freezing cold, me soaked with mud from getting out to see how/where I was stuck...I got an 18 wheeler and a Dodge Ram to stop with one frantic jump in the air and waiving of the arms.
The trucker was the first guy I saw. Initially, I wasn't even aware the Ram had stopped too. The trucker asked what the problem was, I told him, and he said, "well hopefully this guy up here has a jack in his truck." We approached the guy, he had a flashlight and looked through his tool chest...and sure enough, he had one. The trucker asked if everything was under control, I said yes, and he hit the road. At this point...the guy in the Ram says to me, "MY WIFE'S HAVING A BABY, I've gotta go! Take my jack...oh, and you'll prolly need this flash light too." With that, he jumped in his truck and took off. Coolest guy ever, but now I was again all by myself in the dark and cold with a jack that I didn't know how to work, a cell phone that was on it's last leg battery-wise, and a car that I wasn't sure would run properly
I looked through my trunk for the proper tools to get the lug nuts and little cap that covers them off my car (in all honesty, I thought I was missing those, too...so I was looking for any tools that'd work). Well I found the wrench, and the other piece to my jack. So that guy gave me his jack when I (unknowingly) had one. I got busy, changed my tire, and got back on the road. When I hit 40, my car started to shake. By 45, it was an annoying shake. By 50, it was shaking so hard that I thought my radar detector would fall off my windshield. So at a snail's pace of 47mph, I set out to drive 60 miles to the nearest motel.
Would it be that uneventful of a drive? Oh, most certainly not. I'm driving along and there's a car that passes me. He pulls into a rest area, and I eventually pass him, only to see him pull out behind me. I'm driving down the road and I see signs that say right lane closed ahead. I don't want the guy to be stuck behind me for however long going 47mph on a one-lane stretch of highway, so I slowed down to 30 to let him pass. He pulls in behind me and slows down to 30. I slow down more. He does the same. It was so dark that I still hadn't checked my car for damage. So I think to myself, "maybe he sees something wrong with my car that I need to know about," and I pull over. He pulls up behind me. I get out and walk back to his window (don't want anybody walking up to mine, seeing my stockpile of shit, and deciding they want it). It's a black guy, later 20's-early 30's or so, and our conversation goes like this (paraphrased, mostly):
Me: Yeah, what's up?
Guy: Hey, I saw your hazards...is everything alright?
Me: Yeah I just spun out a ways back and now my car is driving funny.
Guy: Oh, sorry to hear that.
Me: I hope I can find a Discount Tire up the road.
Guy: I'm sure you'll find something in the morning.
Me: (Reaches out to shake the guys hand)
Me: Well I appreciate the concern.
Guy: (Clings to my hand as I go to pull away)
Guy: Say, what're you up to right now?
Me: Just going to look for a place to lay my head and get my car fixed.
Me: (Awkwardly jerks my hand back)
Guy: (Reaches for my hand again, and reached toward his lap with his other hand)
Guy: Say, man...can I holla at you for a minute.
Me: Nah, man, I need to hit the road...so I'm um, going to do that, instead.
I high tailed it back to my car, and burned off at a blazing speed of 47mph. The guy stayed behind me for about a mile before going on his way (I assume to another truck stop, to try to pursue more truckers). So, I headed for the nearest hotel.
At this point, I'd gone from pissed to just plain amused, because with the night I'd had...I thought I'd stepped into the fucking twilight zone. I continued on my way to the first exit I saw that had a motel. At 3:00 in the morning, I paid my $28.95 plus tax to the guy, and got my room key. I laid down on a nasty ass bed, in a nasty ass room...plugged my phone in to charge, and decided to call Maggie and tell her what'd been going on. I also decided to watch some TV. Turns out channel 98, the "movie channel," is really some raunchy porn. So I forced her to not only listen to my play-by-play of the night, but a play-by-play of the dirty porn, too. What fun.
Next morning: 10:00 am, I get my requested wake-up call from Maggie. I shower, get dressed, and turn in my room key. The person working the "front desk," if you can call it that, told me what exit to take to get into this little town called Laurel, Mississippi. I drove on my way, asked around at a body repair shop, and got directions to a tire place. I turned over my car to be repaired, and sat down with a lovely old black lady named Mae (probably fast approaching 80 years of age). We watched Family Feud together. Then another old black lady named Rose walked in, and sat down next to Mae. Their conversation, or at least a touch of it, went something like this:
Mae: Ooooh, lordy, I felt horrible this mornin'.
Rose: Well what was wrong with ya?
Mae: My stomach was-a-turnin. I tell you, I think it was them pancakes.
Rose: Oh tell me about it, those run right through ya.
Mae: Yeah, they just gave me the worst diarrhea spell.
At this point, in an attempt to keep from vomiting...I walked out of the store, across the street, and into a shopping mall. I bought a movie (Kentucky Fried Movie, funny...check it out), a couple of books (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch), and some lunch. I then went back to the car place, went back across the street to the movie theater (which wasn't showing anything until 7:00 pm), and then back to the car place. I talked to people, I tried to nap, I watched the entire Rangers/Giants game. All told, I was there for about 5 hours.
2 new front tires (which I needed anyway): $100
1 new front passenger brake hose (which I'd needed for a couple of weeks): $74
1 new alignment (due to the impact of the accident): $59
1 oil change (which I needed anyway): $14.95
With tax, labor, balancing and whatnot, my total: $299 out the door.
Most of it was work that needed to be done anyway, so I wasn't too upset. Reason for the shaking: mud and rocks caked between the rim and tires. When ballancing a tire, you deal in ounces. They said I had close to a pound of mud on my rims and whatnot. So anyway, I hopped on the freeway and drove for about 30 minutes...until I realized that I didn't recognize this stretch of freeway. I stopped and asked for directions, and they sent me an hour out of my way to get back to I-20. Don't ask me how that happened. So it's 6:00, I'm on I-20 in Jackson, Mississippi, and I'm finally heading toward home.
Near the Mississippi border, about 20 minutes later: there's an 18-wheeler in front of me. All of a sudden, one of his back tires (on his trailer) blows out...and there's just sparks and rubber flying all over the fucking roadway. I sped up, passed him, then did everything from flashing my hazards to slowing down in front of him to pointing at his tires as he looked at me with confusion to get him to stop. It ended up taking me a good 2 miles or so to get this guy to pull over...so if you ever need to stop a truck and you don't drive a patrol car, bank on a good 3 or 4 minutes of your time being spent on getting this guy to understand why you're fucking with him.
Jump to Louisiana: I get my first and only citation of the trip (not bad for 2600 miles). The cop is in the median, lights off, shot-gunning passing cars. I'm out in front of the pack, with no cars ahead of me...so I'm a sitting duck, even with my radar detector. As soon as that KA-band lights up full, I slow down and pull to the shoulder. I was stopped and waiting for him before he ever got his car onto the freeway. He didn't even turn on his overheads until he was parked behind me. Our conversation went something like this:
Cop: Please step out of the car. (Due to passing traffic)
Me: (Steps out, walks to the back of the car)
Cop: Do you know why I stopped you?
Cop: (Already writing the citation)
Me: (Hands him my license and insurance before he gets a chance to ask)
Me: Oh, yeah...it's because I was doing about 15 over the speed limit.
Cop: Oh, um, actually...I got you doing 83 in a 70.
Me: I'm cold.
Cop: Yeah, it's a little chilly out tonight.
Me: No, it's cold.
(A truck drives by, and a gust of wind follows him)
Me: See, it's cold.
Cop: Yeah, it is pretty cold out.
Cop: Sign here, it's jus....
Me: ...just saying I'll show up to court. It's not an admission of guilt.
Cop: Um, yeah.
Cop: (Hands me my ticket)
Me: (Folds it up without even looking at it. Heads back to my car)
Me: Alright, have a nice night.
Cop: Sure thing, you too.
Heh, I think he was aggravated that I didn't much care that he was writing me a ticket. I made it quite obvious that I just wanted to get back into my warm car and be on my way...and that the ticket meant absolutely noting to me. It's now in the glove box with the other 6 tickets I have outstanding. I think I need to find a lawyer.
So, I'm on the phone with Maggie as I approach the Texas border. I decide to try my luck with a casino (I'm 20...my birthday is July 12, 1984). I walk in with my license, my keys, my cell phone, and $2 in cash. This frail, 80+ year old security guard asks for my ID. He looks at it, looks at the date on the wall ("You must be born on or before March 8, 1984"), looks at my ID again, goes over to confirm that I'm not old enough with the cashier lady...then comes back. We have the following conversation:
Guy: You won't be 21 until July of this year.
Me: I know. I only have $2 with me.
Guy: Sorry, can't let you play.
Me: I'm on my way home, it'll be a good story to tell.
Guy: Come back when you're 21 and gamble your heart out.
Me: But it's, like...only $2.
Guy: Sorry, can't help you.
Me: Okay, how about you gamble it for me?
Guy: Can't do that.
Me: Okay, what if you keep the profits?
Guy: Nope.
Me: Okay look, I'm giving you my $2 to do with it whatever your heart desires. It's no longer my $2. It's your $2...so it can now be gambled, by you...right? Good luck!
Guy: Nope, if I let you gamble it they could shut our doors, and if I get caught gambling here I can lose my job. Take your $2 on home with you.
Me: Oh. :( You can't gamble here?
Guy: Nope.
Me: What about elsewhere?
Guy: Yeah, I can go somewhere else and gamble.
Me: Oh, when do you get off?
Guy: Late.
Me: Oh. :((((
So that went over really well.
I finally got home, after seeing the worst accident ever. Couldn't even tell what kind of car it was.
It was a very...um, eventful ride home. Despite the ridiculous cost of the trip (about three times a plane ticket, all told), I'd do it again tomorrow if I could. Maggie is a really great girl, and I hope for y'alls sake that you all get to meet her soon.
And there you have the story of my ride home.
-JP
At around 4:00 (EST) on Monday afternoon, I packed up my stuff (by that I mean I scooped my pile of clothes up off the floor and threw them into the back seat of my car). I told Maggie goodbye as she headed off to work, hopped in my car and set out on a trip that, by my calculations, would get my home just in time to take my Tuesday morning midterm.
I spent about 10 minutes lost in Charleston, because one-way streets are a bitch when you're trying to follow directions backwards. However, I ended up getting on the freeway, only to be greeted by a bit of traffic (nothing bad, I mean I'm used to Houston traffic, which I'm certain doesn't exist anywhere else...but it was traffic nonetheless).
Once I got away from Charleston, traffic cleared up and I was on my way. Until I hit Georgia. Let me preface this by saying that on the way there, I drove through a snow storm for about 80 miles outside of Atlanta. Once I got into the good ol' ATL, I noticed that their freeways aren't made for rain. They get really slick, and leave a lot of standing water. Yup, you guessed it...it rained for my entire trip through GA and AL. And I don't mean a slight drizzle, I mean I thought I was driving through the goddamn apocalypse. Any time I got up around 70, my car would take it upon itself to hydroplane from lane to lane due to GA's shitty freeway system. So I was restricted to 60mph or so for a long stretch.
So, in all of this rain, I stopped for gas. You have to understand...my sandals, I've owned and worn them religiously for years now (since high school). The soles, they're practically gone. Slick shoes plus a wet, smooth surface...accident waiting to happen. It was raining, so as I jogged back to my car I ate it. My hand was all scratched up (on top, not on the palm...don't ask me how that happened), and my snappy pants were wet. So I went inside and changed into some basketball shorts, and I was on my way.
So, when you're restricted to a slow speed due to rain or traffic or whatever, what do you do once the obstruction clears up? If you're on a schedule that would have barely gotten you home in time for a midterm, you speed the fuck up...that's what you do. So, that's what I did. I was cutting through the Mississippi night at a high rate of speed. Their freeways, they like to put trees in as a median. They also don't use streetlights. This means two things: 1) You can haul as much ass as you want because there are no cops coming your direction on the other side of the road, and 2) It gets really, really dark.
I'm driving along, well into the triple digits without a car on the road. I come up on a hill, not a really tall one but one just high enough that your headlights are in the air and off the road. Fortunately for me, right over this hill is a super sharp curve. I don't mean a little bend in the road, I mean a good 60-65 degree curve. I don't know if any of you have ever hit a sharp curve while going in excess of 110 mph, but there's one thing that runs through your mind: "Holy hell, this is going to suck."
Sure enough, it sucked. I knew hitting my brakes would send me out of control, so I tried to hug the road. That wasn't working, so I tapped my brakes and sure enough, I went spinning out of control at 95mph or so. I ended up doing a 360 and coming to rest (60-0 in under 1.5 seconds, mind you...this was no pansy accident) in a mud-filled ditch at 1:30 am on a lonely, dark stretch of freeway. Having gone off-roading with my buddies numerous times, I knew how to get myself out. I did...and I crossed the freeway to the other shoulder.
The damage: I didn't fucking know. It was that dark out. Without my hazards on, I couldn't see my car. I knew that I had a flat tire, I could feel that as I crossed the freeway to the side with a shoulder. So after collecting myself in my front seat for a few minutes, I popped my trunk and got out my spare. Then I got my jack. Then I realized that I didn't have the piece needed to rotate the jack and lift the car. So I jumped around and tried to stop a passing car. 15 minutes later, in the freezing cold, me soaked with mud from getting out to see how/where I was stuck...I got an 18 wheeler and a Dodge Ram to stop with one frantic jump in the air and waiving of the arms.
The trucker was the first guy I saw. Initially, I wasn't even aware the Ram had stopped too. The trucker asked what the problem was, I told him, and he said, "well hopefully this guy up here has a jack in his truck." We approached the guy, he had a flashlight and looked through his tool chest...and sure enough, he had one. The trucker asked if everything was under control, I said yes, and he hit the road. At this point...the guy in the Ram says to me, "MY WIFE'S HAVING A BABY, I've gotta go! Take my jack...oh, and you'll prolly need this flash light too." With that, he jumped in his truck and took off. Coolest guy ever, but now I was again all by myself in the dark and cold with a jack that I didn't know how to work, a cell phone that was on it's last leg battery-wise, and a car that I wasn't sure would run properly
I looked through my trunk for the proper tools to get the lug nuts and little cap that covers them off my car (in all honesty, I thought I was missing those, too...so I was looking for any tools that'd work). Well I found the wrench, and the other piece to my jack. So that guy gave me his jack when I (unknowingly) had one. I got busy, changed my tire, and got back on the road. When I hit 40, my car started to shake. By 45, it was an annoying shake. By 50, it was shaking so hard that I thought my radar detector would fall off my windshield. So at a snail's pace of 47mph, I set out to drive 60 miles to the nearest motel.
Would it be that uneventful of a drive? Oh, most certainly not. I'm driving along and there's a car that passes me. He pulls into a rest area, and I eventually pass him, only to see him pull out behind me. I'm driving down the road and I see signs that say right lane closed ahead. I don't want the guy to be stuck behind me for however long going 47mph on a one-lane stretch of highway, so I slowed down to 30 to let him pass. He pulls in behind me and slows down to 30. I slow down more. He does the same. It was so dark that I still hadn't checked my car for damage. So I think to myself, "maybe he sees something wrong with my car that I need to know about," and I pull over. He pulls up behind me. I get out and walk back to his window (don't want anybody walking up to mine, seeing my stockpile of shit, and deciding they want it). It's a black guy, later 20's-early 30's or so, and our conversation goes like this (paraphrased, mostly):
Me: Yeah, what's up?
Guy: Hey, I saw your hazards...is everything alright?
Me: Yeah I just spun out a ways back and now my car is driving funny.
Guy: Oh, sorry to hear that.
Me: I hope I can find a Discount Tire up the road.
Guy: I'm sure you'll find something in the morning.
Me: (Reaches out to shake the guys hand)
Me: Well I appreciate the concern.
Guy: (Clings to my hand as I go to pull away)
Guy: Say, what're you up to right now?
Me: Just going to look for a place to lay my head and get my car fixed.
Me: (Awkwardly jerks my hand back)
Guy: (Reaches for my hand again, and reached toward his lap with his other hand)
Guy: Say, man...can I holla at you for a minute.
Me: Nah, man, I need to hit the road...so I'm um, going to do that, instead.
I high tailed it back to my car, and burned off at a blazing speed of 47mph. The guy stayed behind me for about a mile before going on his way (I assume to another truck stop, to try to pursue more truckers). So, I headed for the nearest hotel.
At this point, I'd gone from pissed to just plain amused, because with the night I'd had...I thought I'd stepped into the fucking twilight zone. I continued on my way to the first exit I saw that had a motel. At 3:00 in the morning, I paid my $28.95 plus tax to the guy, and got my room key. I laid down on a nasty ass bed, in a nasty ass room...plugged my phone in to charge, and decided to call Maggie and tell her what'd been going on. I also decided to watch some TV. Turns out channel 98, the "movie channel," is really some raunchy porn. So I forced her to not only listen to my play-by-play of the night, but a play-by-play of the dirty porn, too. What fun.
Next morning: 10:00 am, I get my requested wake-up call from Maggie. I shower, get dressed, and turn in my room key. The person working the "front desk," if you can call it that, told me what exit to take to get into this little town called Laurel, Mississippi. I drove on my way, asked around at a body repair shop, and got directions to a tire place. I turned over my car to be repaired, and sat down with a lovely old black lady named Mae (probably fast approaching 80 years of age). We watched Family Feud together. Then another old black lady named Rose walked in, and sat down next to Mae. Their conversation, or at least a touch of it, went something like this:
Mae: Ooooh, lordy, I felt horrible this mornin'.
Rose: Well what was wrong with ya?
Mae: My stomach was-a-turnin. I tell you, I think it was them pancakes.
Rose: Oh tell me about it, those run right through ya.
Mae: Yeah, they just gave me the worst diarrhea spell.
At this point, in an attempt to keep from vomiting...I walked out of the store, across the street, and into a shopping mall. I bought a movie (Kentucky Fried Movie, funny...check it out), a couple of books (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch), and some lunch. I then went back to the car place, went back across the street to the movie theater (which wasn't showing anything until 7:00 pm), and then back to the car place. I talked to people, I tried to nap, I watched the entire Rangers/Giants game. All told, I was there for about 5 hours.
2 new front tires (which I needed anyway): $100
1 new front passenger brake hose (which I'd needed for a couple of weeks): $74
1 new alignment (due to the impact of the accident): $59
1 oil change (which I needed anyway): $14.95
With tax, labor, balancing and whatnot, my total: $299 out the door.
Most of it was work that needed to be done anyway, so I wasn't too upset. Reason for the shaking: mud and rocks caked between the rim and tires. When ballancing a tire, you deal in ounces. They said I had close to a pound of mud on my rims and whatnot. So anyway, I hopped on the freeway and drove for about 30 minutes...until I realized that I didn't recognize this stretch of freeway. I stopped and asked for directions, and they sent me an hour out of my way to get back to I-20. Don't ask me how that happened. So it's 6:00, I'm on I-20 in Jackson, Mississippi, and I'm finally heading toward home.
Near the Mississippi border, about 20 minutes later: there's an 18-wheeler in front of me. All of a sudden, one of his back tires (on his trailer) blows out...and there's just sparks and rubber flying all over the fucking roadway. I sped up, passed him, then did everything from flashing my hazards to slowing down in front of him to pointing at his tires as he looked at me with confusion to get him to stop. It ended up taking me a good 2 miles or so to get this guy to pull over...so if you ever need to stop a truck and you don't drive a patrol car, bank on a good 3 or 4 minutes of your time being spent on getting this guy to understand why you're fucking with him.
Jump to Louisiana: I get my first and only citation of the trip (not bad for 2600 miles). The cop is in the median, lights off, shot-gunning passing cars. I'm out in front of the pack, with no cars ahead of me...so I'm a sitting duck, even with my radar detector. As soon as that KA-band lights up full, I slow down and pull to the shoulder. I was stopped and waiting for him before he ever got his car onto the freeway. He didn't even turn on his overheads until he was parked behind me. Our conversation went something like this:
Cop: Please step out of the car. (Due to passing traffic)
Me: (Steps out, walks to the back of the car)
Cop: Do you know why I stopped you?
Cop: (Already writing the citation)
Me: (Hands him my license and insurance before he gets a chance to ask)
Me: Oh, yeah...it's because I was doing about 15 over the speed limit.
Cop: Oh, um, actually...I got you doing 83 in a 70.
Me: I'm cold.
Cop: Yeah, it's a little chilly out tonight.
Me: No, it's cold.
(A truck drives by, and a gust of wind follows him)
Me: See, it's cold.
Cop: Yeah, it is pretty cold out.
Cop: Sign here, it's jus....
Me: ...just saying I'll show up to court. It's not an admission of guilt.
Cop: Um, yeah.
Cop: (Hands me my ticket)
Me: (Folds it up without even looking at it. Heads back to my car)
Me: Alright, have a nice night.
Cop: Sure thing, you too.
Heh, I think he was aggravated that I didn't much care that he was writing me a ticket. I made it quite obvious that I just wanted to get back into my warm car and be on my way...and that the ticket meant absolutely noting to me. It's now in the glove box with the other 6 tickets I have outstanding. I think I need to find a lawyer.
So, I'm on the phone with Maggie as I approach the Texas border. I decide to try my luck with a casino (I'm 20...my birthday is July 12, 1984). I walk in with my license, my keys, my cell phone, and $2 in cash. This frail, 80+ year old security guard asks for my ID. He looks at it, looks at the date on the wall ("You must be born on or before March 8, 1984"), looks at my ID again, goes over to confirm that I'm not old enough with the cashier lady...then comes back. We have the following conversation:
Guy: You won't be 21 until July of this year.
Me: I know. I only have $2 with me.
Guy: Sorry, can't let you play.
Me: I'm on my way home, it'll be a good story to tell.
Guy: Come back when you're 21 and gamble your heart out.
Me: But it's, like...only $2.
Guy: Sorry, can't help you.
Me: Okay, how about you gamble it for me?
Guy: Can't do that.
Me: Okay, what if you keep the profits?
Guy: Nope.
Me: Okay look, I'm giving you my $2 to do with it whatever your heart desires. It's no longer my $2. It's your $2...so it can now be gambled, by you...right? Good luck!
Guy: Nope, if I let you gamble it they could shut our doors, and if I get caught gambling here I can lose my job. Take your $2 on home with you.
Me: Oh. :( You can't gamble here?
Guy: Nope.
Me: What about elsewhere?
Guy: Yeah, I can go somewhere else and gamble.
Me: Oh, when do you get off?
Guy: Late.
Me: Oh. :((((
So that went over really well.
I finally got home, after seeing the worst accident ever. Couldn't even tell what kind of car it was.
It was a very...um, eventful ride home. Despite the ridiculous cost of the trip (about three times a plane ticket, all told), I'd do it again tomorrow if I could. Maggie is a really great girl, and I hope for y'alls sake that you all get to meet her soon.
And there you have the story of my ride home.
-JP