Friday, April 29, 2011
Noxious Armpits, Siblings, Tornados, and Fox-Filled Ravines.
I’m in Texas. Now what for? That depends on who you are. To the professors of my classes that I am ditching, I am here for job interviews that were very last minute. To everyone else, I am on vacation with my friend Tal, who just moved back here. To myself, I am here to spend one last week with my best friend before I have to live life without her. Yes I’m sad. Yes I feel all sappy and nostalgic. No I am not going to cry.
Somebody needed to come with Tal to Texas anyway because she couldn’t do the whole 30 hour thing by herself. So Monday, when she had food poisoning, we took off. Monday evening, we made it to Colorado, where it started to snow. Tal isn’t the best at driving in snow, but because we were going up hills and I don’t know how to really drive stick, she had to be a brave woman. After crossing Summit, and coming down a snowy, ice covered highway, Tal commented how she feels like she is not in the most control of the car, and immediately following that comment, we skid off the road and are headed directly into a metal barrier. I knew I was going to die because the barrier was about to hit directly where I was sitting, and I thought, “Wow. The irony of dying right after I get my B.S.” I guess I am rather apathetic towards death.
Instead of dying, we slid off the road, into the snow and mud, and into a fox filled ravine that had an icy river at the bottom. Tal insisted that we should put it in reverse and just try to make it out, but I knew that we would slide to our frostbitten death if we did, so I say, “Let me just try to push while you put it in reverse,” thinking that if she starts sliding forward, I need to become superman and keep this car out of the river. She was certain the car would just run me over, but I put on my big boy pants and said, “I am a man. Shut up and put it into reverse.” I was able to push the car far enough out of the ravine so that we were no longer dangling over the river, but I was not able to get us all the way out. “Wow, we barely missed that river.” Tal didn’t know that we almost were plunged into a river, and then started to have a panic attack. A Penske truck driver stopped, said he saw out skid marks but had no chain, and then drove off. I managed to call the cops while trying to soothe Tal’s panic, but the cops never came. We just sat on the side of the road, waiting in the cold. Finally some burly Mormons popped out of nowhere and helped me push the car back onto the road.
Colorado came and went, and it became my turn to drive. Tal drove from 1 PM to 3 AM and I had been awake the entire time, but I took my turn to drive. I watched the sunrise in Kansas and was surprised to how flat it was. I actually loved Kansas for most of the time, until that is my sister sent me a text saying that she was moving up to Provo. I instantly threw up in my mouth, which I tried to wash down with some Mountain Dew, which made me throw up once more. Apparently my sister is moving to Provo next week, living with an elderly person, and will be attending UVU. Did she tell my parents any of this? No. But I called them up immediately and told them I was not happy with this situation and that she is dead wrong if she thinks that I will be taking care of her. But while I complained to them, I knew that nothing I said was being heard because they were just euphoric that they would be rid of the plague that is my sister’s shinanagins. I just need to keep telling myself that I will be out of Provo soon enough, where I can reestablish my buffer zone from my family.
Oklahoma… smells like a toilet.
Texas. I am driving once again, while Tal sleeps. I actually have been driving since Oklahoma, and I think that I am finally getting the hang of driving stick, but then traffic occurs and I am stalling out and bouncing around trying to get the damn car in gear every three seconds. Somehow Tal didn’t wake up to my horrible driving and moans of anguish, but I am almost sure that I did horrible things to that car that will kill it in a few months. I pull off to the side of the road to switch before I have to drive through Dallas at rush hour and a UPS man lets us know we will be driving right into a storm where a tornado just touched down. But we can’t stop and wait this thing though because we need to get home, and Tal needs to shower because her deodorant becomes noxious after 20 hours, so we go forward anyway. We make it through the worst rain and wind I have ever encountered, and then I ask why the sky is turning yellow/green behind us. Apparently this means that you will soon be dead from a tornado, so we start driving as fast as our little car can take us (71mph). Lightning is everywhere, and while we drive, transformers explode right off the freeway. Around this time, I believe I developed TMJ, and I began dry heaving.
Somehow we made it through the night and didn’t die, but I can’t help but think that maybe this whole trip was a bit of a mistake. Tal’s last memories of me will be associated with food poisoning, skidding off roads, dangling over ravines, tornados and lighting, and noxious armpits. Not only that, but we’ve been at her home for three days now and she still feels ill. I am just praying that she will remember our good times, and just remember this experience as a funny one.
Somebody needed to come with Tal to Texas anyway because she couldn’t do the whole 30 hour thing by herself. So Monday, when she had food poisoning, we took off. Monday evening, we made it to Colorado, where it started to snow. Tal isn’t the best at driving in snow, but because we were going up hills and I don’t know how to really drive stick, she had to be a brave woman. After crossing Summit, and coming down a snowy, ice covered highway, Tal commented how she feels like she is not in the most control of the car, and immediately following that comment, we skid off the road and are headed directly into a metal barrier. I knew I was going to die because the barrier was about to hit directly where I was sitting, and I thought, “Wow. The irony of dying right after I get my B.S.” I guess I am rather apathetic towards death.
Instead of dying, we slid off the road, into the snow and mud, and into a fox filled ravine that had an icy river at the bottom. Tal insisted that we should put it in reverse and just try to make it out, but I knew that we would slide to our frostbitten death if we did, so I say, “Let me just try to push while you put it in reverse,” thinking that if she starts sliding forward, I need to become superman and keep this car out of the river. She was certain the car would just run me over, but I put on my big boy pants and said, “I am a man. Shut up and put it into reverse.” I was able to push the car far enough out of the ravine so that we were no longer dangling over the river, but I was not able to get us all the way out. “Wow, we barely missed that river.” Tal didn’t know that we almost were plunged into a river, and then started to have a panic attack. A Penske truck driver stopped, said he saw out skid marks but had no chain, and then drove off. I managed to call the cops while trying to soothe Tal’s panic, but the cops never came. We just sat on the side of the road, waiting in the cold. Finally some burly Mormons popped out of nowhere and helped me push the car back onto the road.
Colorado came and went, and it became my turn to drive. Tal drove from 1 PM to 3 AM and I had been awake the entire time, but I took my turn to drive. I watched the sunrise in Kansas and was surprised to how flat it was. I actually loved Kansas for most of the time, until that is my sister sent me a text saying that she was moving up to Provo. I instantly threw up in my mouth, which I tried to wash down with some Mountain Dew, which made me throw up once more. Apparently my sister is moving to Provo next week, living with an elderly person, and will be attending UVU. Did she tell my parents any of this? No. But I called them up immediately and told them I was not happy with this situation and that she is dead wrong if she thinks that I will be taking care of her. But while I complained to them, I knew that nothing I said was being heard because they were just euphoric that they would be rid of the plague that is my sister’s shinanagins. I just need to keep telling myself that I will be out of Provo soon enough, where I can reestablish my buffer zone from my family.
Oklahoma… smells like a toilet.
Texas. I am driving once again, while Tal sleeps. I actually have been driving since Oklahoma, and I think that I am finally getting the hang of driving stick, but then traffic occurs and I am stalling out and bouncing around trying to get the damn car in gear every three seconds. Somehow Tal didn’t wake up to my horrible driving and moans of anguish, but I am almost sure that I did horrible things to that car that will kill it in a few months. I pull off to the side of the road to switch before I have to drive through Dallas at rush hour and a UPS man lets us know we will be driving right into a storm where a tornado just touched down. But we can’t stop and wait this thing though because we need to get home, and Tal needs to shower because her deodorant becomes noxious after 20 hours, so we go forward anyway. We make it through the worst rain and wind I have ever encountered, and then I ask why the sky is turning yellow/green behind us. Apparently this means that you will soon be dead from a tornado, so we start driving as fast as our little car can take us (71mph). Lightning is everywhere, and while we drive, transformers explode right off the freeway. Around this time, I believe I developed TMJ, and I began dry heaving.
Somehow we made it through the night and didn’t die, but I can’t help but think that maybe this whole trip was a bit of a mistake. Tal’s last memories of me will be associated with food poisoning, skidding off roads, dangling over ravines, tornados and lighting, and noxious armpits. Not only that, but we’ve been at her home for three days now and she still feels ill. I am just praying that she will remember our good times, and just remember this experience as a funny one.