Evil Hobgoblin
Jun 26th, 2001, 11:33:22 AM
All of you know that I went on a week's vacation last week to the Phi Theta Kappa Honor's Institute Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. What you don't know is that I had a hella wierd trip! Let me tell you the story.
Originally, my travel plans were as follows- get on a plane that Sunday around 9 A.M. and fly from Richmond, Virginia down to Atlanta, Georgia to make registration about 12 noon.
<fumes>But, my advisor never quite paid for the plane ticket.</fumes>
Instead, he sort of arbitrarily set me up to road trip down with three other guys, which I found out about Friday evening and had to call someone from work to let her know I couldn't make it in for the shift I was supposed to work on Saturday.
"That's okay," I thought as I hung up the phone to go hurridly do some laundry. "It'll be fun."
So we get down to Virginia Beach, which is in southeast Virginia, in the pouring rain. We stop at Jerry's (the guy who owns the car we're driving down in) apartment to wait for the fourth guy, Andrew, who is driving down from the Eastern Shore to meet us. We grab some dinner and pile into the car about 9 P.M. on Saturday. We drive through the night, and make good time because our traveling speed is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-120 mph. At about 4 in the morning when we're just entering Georgia, we switch drivers and three of us take a nap while Andrew drives.
When I wake up Sunday morning at about 6 A.M., I see a sign that says "Welcome to Florida."
Quickly deducing that we've overshot our target, we get some directions and some gas and do a U-turn to get us headed up to Atlanta again. We're about halfway there with Jerry driving when we hit a dead bunny in the road.
We think nothing of it, until we see smoke pouring out the back of the vehicle.
The name of the store with the parking lot where we stopped to check on the car is Bill's Dollar General, in Tifton Georgia. I remember it well. Andrew accidentally sat on some red ants there.
Anyway, we take a look underneath the car and we see a liquid just pouring out of the car. At first we thought it was oil, but realized it wasn't black enough to be oil. It was transmission fluid.
We quickly tried to get the car to a nearby mechanic's house, but found out that the mechanic wasn't in. But then, it's Sunday morning at 9 A.M. Who's going to be in?
Well, the guy at the bait store was. He let us use a phonebook and we called a towing service. We all piled into the car, which was then pulled on top of the towtruck (it was a flatbed towtruck) and we headed off for the nearest repair place that was open.
Turns out that this repair place only repairs Semi-tractor trailer trucks.
One of the repair guys there actually becomes integral to the story, because he offers to take us down to Atlanta if we can't find any other rides.
So the towtruck guy takes us back to his place, which is not open on Sunday. It's one of those local dinkbot places that you're always surprised actually gets business.
We leave the car there and head down to a nearby gas station where we can get some cash. We phone up a cab service fellow who passed by and gave us his card when we were stuck at the mechanic's house and learn that he wants $400 to take us to Atlanta.
Option 2 is to take the repair guy up on his offer, so we call him up. He says he'll take us down in a big ole Buick for 150 bucks. That's the best alternative we have, so we sit down and wait for him to arrive.
While we're waiting, I scope out a few cute chicks, snag a bag of Cheetos, and suppress my urge to go bunny hunting. Jerry is busy making sure that the gas station cashier understands that we're waiting for someone to pick us up, and that we're not loitering.
In the process, he finds out that she's a practicing mechanic.
Rather than leave his car in the hands of the towtruck guy, Jerry makes arrangements to have this nice lady pick up the car and work on it. That finishes itself, so Jerry and I quickly grab some food from a nearby Wendy's.
What can I say? I'm a growing boy and I need my food.
The guy with the Buick soon arrives. We pile all our stuff and ourselves into his car and drive down to Atlanta listening to R&B and some light rap. We stop for gas once, but the remainder of the ride to Georgia Tech is uneventful.
We get there, we register, we unpack, and everything is beautiful.
Until Tuesday. Jerry gets a call that the car is fixed (apparently he just had a problem with a radiator hose being knocked lose) so that night he makes plans to catch a Greyhound Bus down to Tifton to pick it up.
We learn the next day that he's managed to break down again. This time, it's in Perry, Georgia.
So we continue going to the Honor's Institute that we came up to attend and get occaisional updates from Jerry. Apparently he and the mechanic in Perry worked all night rebuilding Jerry's transmission. It cost him $1500.
And then, he drives the car up to Georgia Tech. The car cuts off as it rounds the last turn in front of the dorm where we're staying. Jerry had to push it into a parking space. Later that day, he gets it towed to a nearby Pep Boys.
That night, the car gets broken into and the stereo and all Jerry's CDs and DVDs that are in the car are stolen. Some of the Virginia people took Jerry out to dinner to help cheer him back up.
Jerry kept the piece of concrete that was used to break into his car.
The conference ends. We head back up to Virginia Beach, where Andrew realizes that he has lost the keys to the car he came up in. While he waits at Jerry's house for a ride, Jerry takes me and Benjamin back home. A friend of his named Jessica comes along for the ride.
2 miles outside of Richmond, Jerry gets pulled by a cop for going 84 in a 65 zone.
After all that, plus some mixed up directions on my part where we circle the area around Laburnum Avenue for a bit, we arrive at my house and the trip is over.
Crazy, huh?
Originally, my travel plans were as follows- get on a plane that Sunday around 9 A.M. and fly from Richmond, Virginia down to Atlanta, Georgia to make registration about 12 noon.
<fumes>But, my advisor never quite paid for the plane ticket.</fumes>
Instead, he sort of arbitrarily set me up to road trip down with three other guys, which I found out about Friday evening and had to call someone from work to let her know I couldn't make it in for the shift I was supposed to work on Saturday.
"That's okay," I thought as I hung up the phone to go hurridly do some laundry. "It'll be fun."
So we get down to Virginia Beach, which is in southeast Virginia, in the pouring rain. We stop at Jerry's (the guy who owns the car we're driving down in) apartment to wait for the fourth guy, Andrew, who is driving down from the Eastern Shore to meet us. We grab some dinner and pile into the car about 9 P.M. on Saturday. We drive through the night, and make good time because our traveling speed is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100-120 mph. At about 4 in the morning when we're just entering Georgia, we switch drivers and three of us take a nap while Andrew drives.
When I wake up Sunday morning at about 6 A.M., I see a sign that says "Welcome to Florida."
Quickly deducing that we've overshot our target, we get some directions and some gas and do a U-turn to get us headed up to Atlanta again. We're about halfway there with Jerry driving when we hit a dead bunny in the road.
We think nothing of it, until we see smoke pouring out the back of the vehicle.
The name of the store with the parking lot where we stopped to check on the car is Bill's Dollar General, in Tifton Georgia. I remember it well. Andrew accidentally sat on some red ants there.
Anyway, we take a look underneath the car and we see a liquid just pouring out of the car. At first we thought it was oil, but realized it wasn't black enough to be oil. It was transmission fluid.
We quickly tried to get the car to a nearby mechanic's house, but found out that the mechanic wasn't in. But then, it's Sunday morning at 9 A.M. Who's going to be in?
Well, the guy at the bait store was. He let us use a phonebook and we called a towing service. We all piled into the car, which was then pulled on top of the towtruck (it was a flatbed towtruck) and we headed off for the nearest repair place that was open.
Turns out that this repair place only repairs Semi-tractor trailer trucks.
One of the repair guys there actually becomes integral to the story, because he offers to take us down to Atlanta if we can't find any other rides.
So the towtruck guy takes us back to his place, which is not open on Sunday. It's one of those local dinkbot places that you're always surprised actually gets business.
We leave the car there and head down to a nearby gas station where we can get some cash. We phone up a cab service fellow who passed by and gave us his card when we were stuck at the mechanic's house and learn that he wants $400 to take us to Atlanta.
Option 2 is to take the repair guy up on his offer, so we call him up. He says he'll take us down in a big ole Buick for 150 bucks. That's the best alternative we have, so we sit down and wait for him to arrive.
While we're waiting, I scope out a few cute chicks, snag a bag of Cheetos, and suppress my urge to go bunny hunting. Jerry is busy making sure that the gas station cashier understands that we're waiting for someone to pick us up, and that we're not loitering.
In the process, he finds out that she's a practicing mechanic.
Rather than leave his car in the hands of the towtruck guy, Jerry makes arrangements to have this nice lady pick up the car and work on it. That finishes itself, so Jerry and I quickly grab some food from a nearby Wendy's.
What can I say? I'm a growing boy and I need my food.
The guy with the Buick soon arrives. We pile all our stuff and ourselves into his car and drive down to Atlanta listening to R&B and some light rap. We stop for gas once, but the remainder of the ride to Georgia Tech is uneventful.
We get there, we register, we unpack, and everything is beautiful.
Until Tuesday. Jerry gets a call that the car is fixed (apparently he just had a problem with a radiator hose being knocked lose) so that night he makes plans to catch a Greyhound Bus down to Tifton to pick it up.
We learn the next day that he's managed to break down again. This time, it's in Perry, Georgia.
So we continue going to the Honor's Institute that we came up to attend and get occaisional updates from Jerry. Apparently he and the mechanic in Perry worked all night rebuilding Jerry's transmission. It cost him $1500.
And then, he drives the car up to Georgia Tech. The car cuts off as it rounds the last turn in front of the dorm where we're staying. Jerry had to push it into a parking space. Later that day, he gets it towed to a nearby Pep Boys.
That night, the car gets broken into and the stereo and all Jerry's CDs and DVDs that are in the car are stolen. Some of the Virginia people took Jerry out to dinner to help cheer him back up.
Jerry kept the piece of concrete that was used to break into his car.
The conference ends. We head back up to Virginia Beach, where Andrew realizes that he has lost the keys to the car he came up in. While he waits at Jerry's house for a ride, Jerry takes me and Benjamin back home. A friend of his named Jessica comes along for the ride.
2 miles outside of Richmond, Jerry gets pulled by a cop for going 84 in a 65 zone.
After all that, plus some mixed up directions on my part where we circle the area around Laburnum Avenue for a bit, we arrive at my house and the trip is over.
Crazy, huh?