on a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair…
…what little hair i have, that is.
and i wasn’t listening to the eagles, either. but i’m getting way ahead of myself. let’s begin at the begining…
a belated sunday six pack of what made me late:
1. getting up at work-day time on a non-work day sucks – so, i decided maybe getting on the road at 8:00 wasn’t as crucial as i thought it was, so i shot for 8:30, forgetting that “on the road” didn’t really mean “on the road”, because…
2. when only one enterprise rent-a-car is open in an entire half of a city, they get slammed – and we had to get alex transportation during my absence. so, we had to wait. did get her a cute mazda 3, though. now she wants one…and only mentions it to me (on average) of six times an hour. it tool them so long that…
3. the machaca comes a’ callin’ – sue me, i really dig the machaca at i-hop…and alex mentioned she was gonna go there for breakfast, and i figured i gotta eat sometime, might as well do it before i get on the road, so i end up at ihop – and therefore don’t leave austin till 10:30, two hours behind schedule. where did the other two hours in the delay happen? well, first there was…
4. me not listening to myself – you would figure after all the many, many, MANY backyard shows i’d worked and all the hundreds of people i have given directions to, that maybe i would remember what fucking road it was on, right? well, combining the fact that i took a shortcut that put me on the wrong road, coupled with the fact that last time i went west to midland and odessa i took highway 71 out, so i just got on it and started going – forgetting that this was the wrong fork of the famous “y in oak hill” and i should be on 290. realized it twenty minutes later, and felt really, REALLY stupid. fortunately, the people at the oil change place were a bit over zealous on sunday, and when they cleaned me out, they threw away the folded up piece of paper that was under the driver’s seat – that happened to be my printed up directions from mapquest. since i was planning on taking the atlas anyway, i grabbed it right before i left – which allowed me to see how to get back on track (thirty-two miles down 281 after a ten mile jaunt in the wrong direction once i realized the error) and all was well. on to fredricksburg, and my plan to be “on the i10 by ten” turned into being on the i10 by 1:04 – which was okay, due to the eighty mile an hour speed limit, until an interruption from…
5. the redheaded bastard felon – not used to describe anyone in my immediate circle, believe it or not. apparently there was a convict on the loose, who was last seen in a car headed west on i10 – so they set up a roadblock on a point in the road where there were no exits and no way to turn around; you just got to sit and wait it out. so i went from covering eighty three miles in an hour to doing just under two miles in fourty-six minutes. plus, let me tell you – nothing tests your bladder fortitude than already having to piss (and missing your exit due to arguing with alex on the phone and just telling myself i’d hit the next town since it was only ten miles away, not knowing that would take an hour) then coming up on a texas state trooper road block and being pretty sure that an unpaid ticket puts you in an uncool place if they run your shit. fortunately, the wait and fear of wasting gas with the a/c running made me put the top down, so when i pulled up the state trooper that had to search my ride didn’t even need me to step out. “can you fit a six foot tall man in your trunk?”, he asked. “what circus does he do his contortion act with?”, i replied. we laughed. i got waved through. finally back on the road, but now…
6. the machaca calls again – i had to stop in ft. stockton at 5:00 for food. i hadn’t had lunch. it had to happen. i felt all the worse when dad called to say he had a rack of babybacks for us to split when i got there, along with a bottle of crown. since it was still a four hour drive from there, i figured all would be cool, and i would be hungry when i arrived. i was right.
the sun set on me as i pulled out of roswell, new mexico (and yes, i bought alien crap there – along with my own bottle of crown, since it was on sale for $16.99 at walgreen’s – bless the native american population and their booze issues). i threw the top down again, threw in pink floyd’s dark side of the moon, and headed off into the desert and then the mountains. by the time the final heartbeat echoed through the car i was pulled up under the deck at my dad’s place, mere moments away from a fabulous view of the stars, good ribs, good whiskey, and good dad bonding while we watched elk and deer feed in his front yard. i envy that man’s life. i bought a lotto ticket on the way home ’cause i found out the place next to his is for sale. if i win i’ll move in a heartbeat. but that ticket was acquired the next day…and that, folks, is another story.