Like my buddy Todd’s wedding, the weekend was a good time. There was drinking, strippers, getting chastised for swearing during the pictures, and a photo that I will cherish for as long as I live. The wedding night though was kind of a bust. Everyone petered out after dinner and just wanted to go back to their perspective hotel rooms and relax.
Mr. fifth wheel was not impressed.
Yawn!
After dumping the tuxedo, I thought about going back to the bar the wedding party visited briefly before dinner. A waitress there showed quite a bit of interest in me. But now, it was raining cats and dogs, and I was driving my brother’s crappy old cavalier. As I drove past the bar, peering through rain streaked windows; I decided to make a run for home.
She wasn’t much of a catch anyway.
I forgot to mention earlier. My brother’s crappy Cavalier was in desperate need of new tennis shoes. The chords didn’t show, but neither did the tread.
Here it was, a Saturday night in Wisconsin. A place I loved to party. A a single guys haven, and the land of plenty of personal success. However, instead of whooping it up in one of the few bars Wisconsin had to offer, I was in fear for my life, in my brother’s crappy old Cavalier.
The speed limit on I94 in Wisconsin was sixty-five in those days. I was lucky to maintain sixty. To this day, I could not tell you what was giving me more fits. The clutch slipping, or the tires spinning as I broke the sixty mile per hour mark.
I was in fear for my life. Having driven that rode a thousand times, rain, and shine. I knew it would take only one truck, doing seventy-two miles per hour, to run up on me, and push me off into the ditch. There I would sit, trapped in my brothers bashed and battered Cavalier, hoping someone found me. Found me before my brothers stash of sunflower seeds ran out, and I died of starvation.
As it turns out, not a single truck passed me that night. Hell, it was the loneliest drive of my life. I was headed towards an empty house. I left a willing young lady behind me. Moreover, my future was as uncertain as the traction and clutch in that crappy old Cavalier.
The car survived the trip, as did I.
Later, I commented to my brother about the frustrating and terrifying trip in his crappy old Cavalier.
“I would never have taken that piece of shit to Eau Claire! What, are you crazy?” He replied.
Sometimes…I think so.