Worst Road Trip Ever

So, this is in answer to an assignment from Jeff, who has one of the cooler site name/address combinations out there and wrote all about his crappy spring break last week and asked us to do the same.

Anyway, this was also a spring break, in my sophomore year of college, spring of 1999, and my roommate, my high school friend and I decided to join our three other friends for a road trip to Texas. Before leaving my mom informed me (mistakenly as it turns out) that my insurance did not cover any other drivers besides me, so if I let anyone drive my car and they so much as got a ticket, it was out of my pocket. So, we begin the 26 hour drive at about 6 p.m. with me behind the wheel the whole way.

That's all right though, because we get as far as Story City, Iowa when my car starts spewing black smoke, sputtering and swerving and I have to pull over to the nearest gas station and call AAA. The mechanic who comes is about four and a half feet tall and appears to have had his hand amputated and put back on incorrectly and he informs me that "cars ain't meant to be drived long distances at high speeds," and that I should have it towed in in the morning. So the next morning we tow it to Ames, where they replace two spark plugs and tell us we're good to go.

So, with a lot of caffeine and Twizzlers, I drive the rest of the 20 hours myself and collapse in a hotel room while the five other people go out to the pool. A couple hours later I'm awakened by the police pounding on the door. They inform me that while all my friends were out at the pool, my car was broken into. They smashed in my window and stole my stereo.

So, I spend the third day of my spring break (the first day was in Iowa, the second driving to Texas) getting my window replaced in some shady strip mall in the suburbs of Houston.

The middle part of the vacation went pretty well... we drove over the border into Mexico and bought some Chicklets from little Mexican children and drank Corona and felt all cultured and shit.

Then, on the drive home I saw a drunk driver weave in and out of traffic and drive right off the road and into a sign. At that point I decided it might be a good idea to let someone else drive for a few hours, no matter what the insurance said. So I let my roommate take over, gave her the keys at the gas station, and she promptly put the ignition key in the door and broke it off.

So, we had to call a 24 hour locksmith out to an Oklahoma gas station at 11 o'clock at night and I'm not even going to describe what that experience was like.

Houseboy and I are starting on a roadtrip ourselves tomorrow--out to my cousin's wedding in Maine and down to his family and around to Tennessee, etcetera... here's hoping it's better than that one was.


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