Last month I was introduced to a fellow blogger that I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of reading. He’s young, talented, and as you will soon see… has a great sense of humor.
Thanks for this fun post, Marty… especially after your long and adventurous drive!
If you haven’t met Marty Duane yet, I definitely think you need to stop by his site… you won’t be disappointed.
Events… Road Trip
Guest post by Marty Duane
Road trips are not pleasant.
Oh, but you say you love them! I’m going to tell you about a series of events. Some of these events will be slightly disturbing… some might make you laugh… but ultimately, they are designed to convince you how unpleasant road trips truly are.
1. I passed an SUV full of teenage girls. As I pulled up next to them, I nervously noticed they were all on their cellphones, including the driver. As they swerved around the road, their fingers never left their phones. As they forced my car onto the rumble strips to avoid them, I humorously thought about what could be so important to text, in the meantime risking all our lives. Maybe… “Meet us! We’re going to buy a scrunchie! LOL” You have to admit, it sounds very important.
2. I was on the I-35 interstate minding my own business when I glanced in my rear view mirror and noticed this huge F-350 duel pickup roaring down on me, although I was already driving 80 MPH. Instead of pulling over to pass me, the stocky construction man is too engrossed in manicuring his mustache in the mirror, and almost runs me over.
He finally decides to pass me, and as he pulls up next to me, I glance over to give him the “Let’s Race Guy Nod” but instead of giving me “the nod,” his face is puckered up and he’s purposely blowing a bubble in my direction. When the big wad of Bazooka™ is nicely displayed in a huge bubble on his round face, I watch as his long tongue protrudes from behind the mustache and dramatically pops the bubble.
His face holds a satisfied gleam as he attempts to get the deflated bubble out of his mustache, all the while staring at me as if to say, “Oh ya…. you better believe it. Feel the burn. You just got served, my friend.”
Not wanting to back down, I reached over and opened my glove compartment. Glancing back at Mr. Bubbles™, I see his eyes wide with fear. He has stopped blowing his second bubble, and it hangs there, slowly losing air and sagging as he continues to watch me dig in my glove compartment. Suddenly he roars away, his F350 drowning out my voice as I yell after him, “No… No! I wasn’t reaching for a gun. Trust me, I’m not that tough. I was just trying to find my watermelon flavored Bubblelicious™!”
3. I only drove 680 miles yesterday, and somehow I managed to gradually undress myself as I drove. I spilled my sweet & sour sauce on my shirt while eating my McNuggets™, dribbled my ice cream cone on my jeans, and at one point the sun had turned my car into a crockpot, me being the roast. One by one, clothes were discarded and replaced with more comfortable, more pajama type attire. By my calculations, if I had driven 452 more miles yesterday, I would have arrived completely commando.
Maybe you have your own road trip horror stories to add. I’d love to hear them!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Those girls texting were probably communicating with each other. Talking face to face is so yesterday, ya know?
Larry
Larry, I share the same concern! I think eventually the English language will be pathetic, conversational skills will lack, romance will only happen in text form, it’s just a sad world.
Thanks for your comment!
hahaha I looove the “I wasn’t reaching for a gun!” Too funny
Okay, I thought both stories were a scream.
I do think that the need for a scrunchy is more pressing than you understand, though.
Too bad it is driving horror stories. How about a story where you rent a pontoon boat to ride down the river, get caught up in a sandbar, push it off, and then it goes off without you? Yep. Bob and I had to swim the river to catch up with our rented boat. Good times!
Helen, I’ve been there! Sounds like a hilarious story!
And sometime, ask me about the time I was caught in the middle of the Mississippi River on an air mattress with no way to get back to the edge, while a barge was blowing its fog horn at me. Good times.
bubblelicious!
Too funny, Marty… One of the toughest parts of a roadtrip is eating in the car… to eat while driving and risk wearing the sauce…or to stop, stay clean and waste precious driving time???… I can only imagine if the girls you passed earlier in the trip had passed you while you were “undressing yourself”, they would have had a whole lot more to tweet and text about than scrunchies! LOL
Oh, I can only imagine. What a nightmare!
I can just see the text the driver would send the girl in the back seat.
“Look 3:00! Ugly Naked Dude! LOLOL”
Bridget. I see you have taken the thong out of your header. My twitter post is ruined….
Sorry again, Helen. I feel awful that my thong caused you such distress!
Ha, Marty, this is amusing. My best friend and I used to take road trips all the time. We’d visit each other, drive to and from the town we lived in together, take trips to the beach or the mountains, &tc. We believe we have enough “roadtrips mishaps” material to eventually write a book that will raise both of us from our impending college debt. Someday in the future, look for the book, “Driving Adventures with April and Marissa.” It began as a working title, but I think we’re attached now.
Anyways, one of my favorite stories (it looks long, but it’s a pretty quick read. I think.):
It happened in the spring of 2008. April and I lived together in Packwood, WA. (I would never recommend that two mentally unstable twenty-something best friends live and work together in high-stress atmospheres, by the way. We look back now and laugh, but there were times when we might have killed each other.) We were both restless from small town life. We needed to “get out of Dodge” and spend a night “painting the town red.” Just so long as that town wasn’t Packwood, since we were the highly respected “AmeriCorps Girls.”
Naturally, to fulfill our desire for Big City Life, we bypassed the drive to Seattle, vetoed heading to Vancouver, B.C., and balked the trek to Tacoma. Instead, we of course went to Yakima (for those of you unfamiliar with Yakima, it’s a fruit town. No, not fruity. Just fruit. Look it up).
So we hopped in my Bright-Red-Cop-Magnet-Chevy-Beretta-Z26-Almost-Sports-Car and drove (sped) the hour and fifteen minutes (forty-five when you go more than 80 mph) over the mountains and into Yakima, giggling with reckless abandon, dressed in our best Springtime duds and flip-flops (this is important later). Our first stop was the Red Lobster for an early dinner. We needed Garlic Cheese Biscuits, and we needed them NOW. After eating at the restaurant, we went back out to my car to discuss where our next stop would be. We chose Target (that’s tar-jzey).
So we got in the car, I stuck the key in the ignition, and turned it. Half-turn, three quarter turn, there it was–*click.* Look at April. We share that “you’ve got to be kidding me” glance. Try the ignition again. *click* This can’t be happening. Bang head against steering wheel. One more time, just for good measure. *rrooooo…click* Get out of car. Kick tire. Try not to scream (it is, after all, the parking lot of a restaurant).
I compose myself (sort of) and dig out my wallet to call Triple A (for the third time in six months–other long stories). We go through the now-routine exchange, and I tell them where we are and where we’re going. I was immediately told the wait would be about three hours if we were going to get a truck to take us all the way back to Packwood. Three hours? Great.
So we decide to walk to Tarjzey. In the blistering Eastern Washington sun. About a third of the way there, we were both stripped down to our tank tops (something I was not entirely comfortable with, but that’s yet another story). By halfway there, I was limping. By two thirds of the way, our pace had been cut in half due to dehydration and my inability to walk properly. By three quarters of the way, I was walking barefoot down the streets of town. Ah, the looks you get when you exercise deviance. When we finally arrived at Tarjzey, I broke down and cried. Okay, so I didn’t cry. But I did sit on the bench in the entryway of the store and assess the damage to my feet. I had blisters that covered the entirety of the balls of each foot. It was pretty gross. Those flip-flops were almost retired right then and there (they still sit on the rack of shame in my closet).
In the store, I bought bandaging materials and very soft, very therapeutic sandals. We also picked up a few necessities that were extremely expensive in an out-of-the-way place like Packwood. Nowhere near what we would’ve gotten if we could drive, but hey, you do what you can. I washed and bandaged my poor feet in the women’s restroom, which is a huge deal for a germaphobe (and got me more really awesome looks). Then we started to walk back to my car. I think I did finally break down and cry at one point. Shudder.
Anyways, by the time we arrived back at the Red Lobster parking lot, we had about fifteen to twenty minutes before the Fantastic Savior Tow Truck would arrive to take us all the way over the mountains and back to the Dreaded Small Town. I looked at my car and sniffed a little (my feet still hurt). Then the strangest thing happened…an odd sensation came over me.
I defiantly told April I was going to try the car one more time. I stuck the key in the ignition, turned it three quarters, heard a strange sound and left it there for twenty seconds. Then I took a deep breath, held it, turned the key, and…*click* Seriously?
Okay, one more time. I turned the key, and… *vroooom* Car roars to life! What the heck?! But it lives! CRAP, THE TOW TRUCK!!!
Rush to call Triple A and cancel the tow. I think he actually got the call as he drove by. I felt a little bad for the guy. But at least he didn’t have to drive two hours out of his way…
It took me three weeks to get my car fixed. Turns out there was something wrong with the fuel injection (the strange sound I heard right before turning the key all the way). The guy who repaired my car replaced the part (for a wonderful $360), and broke my gas gauge. To this day, I still have no clue how full my tank is. At least it starts. Usually.