Sunday, October 02, 2005

Woah

Well, what a night it's been. It's about 12:20am as I write this and I'm sitting at Spot Coffee. The day started out with so much promise! Julie and I went to the farmers' market, had breakfast at Highland Park Diner, went over to Powers Farm Market to check out the teepees... all was going well. Later in the day, I smoked a nice Cuban cigar. After that, my future brother-in-law, Mark, came over and we watched Bubba Hotep... a great movie staring Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ozzie Davis as John F. Kennedy. It wasn't until shortly thereafter when things took a turn.

I am the designated driver for Julie and her friend Julie tonight for a work baccelorette party. As we're leaving, getting ready to turn onto Dewey Avenue, we notice that her brother and his girl friend have pulled the car into Pizza Hut. Next thing I notice, they're PUSHING THEIR CAR into the parking lot. We immediatly turn into the lot to see what happened. Turns out their car just stopped running. Well, I picked up the two Julies, dropped them off at Mex on Alexander Street, and then drove back to Greece to see if they'd gotten the car started. No such luck. They end up calling AAA to get the car towed. I run home to grab my laptop, thinking it's going to be a while, and drive back over to Pizza Hut after wolfing down my second Lean Pocket of the day.

We wait... for what felt like a very long time. Finally a FUCKING VAN pulls up. Now, I'm no towing expert, but a van isn't usually what I think of when it comes to towing a car. Apparently, AAA didn't believe us when we said the car wouldn't start and that it had nothing to do with the battery. Maybe it was the fuel pump, we suggested. Anyway, this kid gets out of the van and boldly states that he's going to jump the battery. Um, yeah, there's no problem with the battery you shithead!

A bit of a side note: Mark's car is a thousand years old. Well, not literally. It's a Plymouth of some sort with a 1988 body and a 1991 engine - sporting about 130,000 miles. About the only parts of this car that aren't going bad are the battery and the starter which was replaced just a week earlier. So anyway, the kid decides jumping the battery ain't gonna work! Next, he pours some gasoline directly into the fuel injector to see if that will get the car to start. Again, no luck. He calls a tow truck.

The tow truck is a good HOUR away. Apparently, there was a vehicle on the Parkway that lost a wheel (it was a drunk driver incident, according to the two truck driver). We wait, and wait, and wait some more. Eventually the tow truck comes and we get the thing hitched up and we're off. Where are we off to? THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!!! Hamlin, to be exact, but really I think I heard banjos playing in the distance. Apparently Diane's cousin, or newphew or whatever owns his own shop. I felt like I was driving into the middle of the woods to dispose of a body - or in this case, a dead car. We get to the shop - driving down a winding path about 1000 feet off the main road, through the woods, with no one around. They drop off the car, and Diane's mom comes and picks them up. She did not appear to be thrilled to be there.

Anyway, my next step is to figure out where the hell I am so I can find my way back in time to get back downtown to pick up the two Julies. Apparently, as long as you drive north, you eventually hit the Parkway again, which took me back to Lake Avenue, and back downtown.

The journey is now over, running from 7pm to just before midnight and here I sit at Spot Coffee waiting for the call to take everyone home. I'm not sure how long Spot is open, but so long as everyone doesn't stay out past 2am, I should be ok. Exactly the way I wanted to spend my Saturday night! Too bad I didn't get any pictures...