LMAO! Dude, you rock!
Let me know how the cigars are?

Gene Wilder/War & Peace/Book on tape added a new dimension to my karmic punishment on the way home. Woe was me. Left at 5pm (she was late getting back to Charlotte), made it back here by 10:30, averaging 79 mph and with two stops along the way.

I should explain for those who didn't hear about the subject of this post:

The future Mrs. couldn't come down to Juan's with me because of a friggin baby shower for a co-worker, and I knew I would be driving 400 miles on very little sleep, with me getting off at midnight the night before the meet, so I came up with what I THOUGHT was a decent idea: find someone else who was already heading the same way to ride along.

Now, 10-20 years ago, if I was to try to make this idea happen, I'd have cruised by the Trailways bus station, or posted a 3X5 card on the bulletin board at local universities. Nowadays, it's all about the internet, and a co-worker encouraged me to try a posting on CraigsList.

A few responses, I weed out the wackos, and decide it'd be much better to be accompanied by a young lady instead of another dude, so I arranged for a girl from Greenville, SC to ride along with me to Charlotte, then she would arrange for a relative to make the 100 mile trip from her hometown to pick her up. I thought it was too easy- she's an English Professor at Clemson, had a nice phone conversation with her, she insisted on paying for gas and she lived 5 mins from me.

Hold on for it, you know this sounds too good to work out fine for me.

Butt-early Saturday morning, we get going at 7am in the driving rain. All seems fine, until we get down the road about 40-50 miles. She hasn't stopped talking since we left her place. I have heard all about the ex-boyfriend, the college years, the family, her love of a local Mexican food hole-in-the wall joint in Greenville, etc.
Maybe she'll simmer down and zip it further down the road?

VA/NC border, still going strong with the yapping. It was like a book on tape! The past hour and a half has been the epic saga of the search for a roommate once she moved to DC. I think I'll try to squash all this yammering with a pit stop. At least she can't follow me into the Men's room!

Rolling again through NC and I start to think about turning up the stereo and claiming some sort of malfunction and that I can't turn it down anymore. Wimp! I don't do it. Henderson, Durham, Burlington, Greensboro...still yakkin' away! SHEESH!

80 miles north of Juan's, still a non-stop talking machine in my passenger seat. I am playing the nice guy, responding, albeit shortly, to the tales and recollections and biographical info spewing from her mouth like the busted levee on Lake Pontchartrain. I am actually beginning to get hoarse from the sheer amount of responding I've been doing, when suddenly traffic stops dead on highway 85. There's a bad accident ahead. I can see 4 ambulances and half a dozen State Troopers, all southbound lanes closed. Maybe she'll be distracted by the activity ahead? The skies have finally cleared up and the sun is shining, and she's STILL talking! As we sit there, I look over at her and realize, she is a dead ringer for Gene Wilder! Same hair, even!

In case you forgot:


So, as Gene Wilder continues to gush like a fire hydrant, and I continue to lose my voice from responding to her, I see a MedEvac helo flying over head. We'd been sitting stone still for 15 mins already, now they're gonna dust off some poor bastard so we'll be sitting here even longer. Jesus H.! She's not even CLOSE to shutting up! I get out and stand on the median with all the other onlookers. I even make the arm-pull gesture to passing truckers to get them to blow the air horn. All the little kids love it when they do that, soon I've got them doing it too, then the parents join in. I am thinking that I'd rather listen to a hundred of those horns constantly blowing than get back in the X and hear more of the life and times of Gene Wilder- a Book On Tape, narrated by my passenger. I call the Tega Cay Beach Club, talk to Mrs. Juan and tell her I'm gonna be late due to the dust off, hold some barbecue for me and have a gallon of Chloraseptic ready for me too. I didn't really ask for the Chloraseptic, but I was wishing I had some so I could spray it on her tongue. That stuff'll numb anything. I got it on my hands one time as a kid immediately before takin a whizz. Don't ever do that, especially when you're 7.

Still with me? If this is painful to read, imagine hearing it spoken by Gene Wilder with a twang. You are feeling my pain.

FINALLY get to my hotel, she is met there by the aforementioned relative, and I RUN into the hotel to check in cause I am LATE for the meet!

I get to the front desk, the cutie there asks me for my name and all I can say is "gasp!". My voice was completely gone. Luckily, it was a false alarm, and it creaked back to life.

Show up late to the meet, all good, great times, dreading the ride back with Gene already.

She's two hours late getting back to meet me at my hotel on Sunday afternoon, we get under way at 5pm. Clear skies, 75 degrees, winds light from the northwest.

There's apparently been a few things she forgot to tell me, so she begins with the marathon talkfest again. I am ready for it this time, and I halfway tune it out, I am adapting, and not a moment too soon, because there's about to be a new wrinkle here.

An hour or so into the trip, I discover a new smell wafting across my nose.

I look around, no dead skunk on the road. No pollution control plant. No sweage treatment facility. No truckload of livestock ahead. No port-a-john lying on the highway. The A/C and the air filter is on, that smell ain't extra-vehicular.

I look over at Gene, who is still going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and DAMN! She is rippin' em as she's runnin' her mouth nonstop! I mean, she musta gone out to that Mexican joint she talked about yesterday and ordered the frijoles with extra frijoles, these things would put a frat boy to shame! These are more poltergeists than farts, the thought of them still haunts me. But I had to admire her skill: she managed to break em off while in full-on conversation, one way as it was. No moving at all while bustin' ass, neither! Think about it: don't you at least stop talking, and lift a leg/wave an arm/make a face when you get down with the air biscuit? I don't think it's possible for me to not stop EVERYTHING going on to crank one. Yet, she was able to multi-task while blastin her ass gas. You have to admire that, don't you?

Can you Zaino a leather comfort seat?

I'll leave y'all on that high note, I need some sleep in the peace and quiet of my home.

JV

PS- just flippin the channels here- Young Frankenstein is on Fox Movie Channel

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JV

What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know...it's what we know for sure that just ain't so

I can't stop laughing! I'm trying not to wake Joanna up! You suck posting this so late and I can't bust out laughing! Have a good night...catch up with you later. Go give your ears some rest.

HAHAHAHAHA!!! Its break of dawn here in merry 'ol England, another dreary cold Monday, and Im sitting here pissing myself laughing at 5:30 in the morning....Thanks for the great start JV...This could only happen to you...Was she at least do-able, even after a few?

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Been there...Done that

a 3 at 10 is a 10 at 3

Ah yes, the old "hotel bar hookup". I know it well. Okay, maybe not. The last almost-hotel bar hookup was with a waitress in Quincy, MA who was from Dorchester-Southy. I think she would have kicked my ass. Okay, it wasn't even close to a hookup but I can relate to JV because while at that same hotel there was, believe it or not, a high school senior trip staying there, and a Miss Massachusettes pageant tryout. I was also at a hotel in Anaheim in June and there were three, yes three, busloads of high school seniors staying at my hotel for their senior trip to Disneyland. Sorry for the .

JV: Helluva a story. Did you regail any of your listeners with tales of the X5world meet?

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OK, Rack 'EM!! That's the winner!!

Holy cow, JV! I've got tears going down -- that's how hard I'm laughing. What a great story.

By the way, you should have called me!! I could have taken you around -- given you a little tour or something to pass the time until Gene Wilder showed up!

Juan

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Whenever I text "Barack," my phone suggests the word "Capable." I guess my my phone IS pretty smart.

THAT is hystertical....sorry JV, I feel for ya man, I can only imagine what that trip was like...but reading it made me bust out big time here at work

I can't even type, I'm laughing so hard. That is truely a classic, JV.

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