Most of you have heard little tidbits of my driving-across-the-country-story, but I decided for the benefit of my future posterity I would blog about the experience in its entirety and then, depending on how much they're willing to pay, may possibly submit it to the Washington Post for a syndicated series.
So as you may or may not know, I got a job. A cool job. I am now a Research Assistant for the National Bureau of Economic Research. Based on my super awesome (and somewhat longish) job title you can probably guess that the job is located in the capital of the free world. However since I was living in the barren desert a somewhat long distance away (2106.6 miles according to Mapquest) from the capital of the free world and I do not believe in 30+ hour commutes, it was necessary that I bring some clothes and stay a while.
At first, it was decided that Mom was to accompany me on my trip, so that I would not have to drive through the scary city of Cheyenne all by my lonesome. Unfortunately Mamma Mia was not totally excited about driving through Nebraska for the 3107th time in her life, so she let it be known that she preferred to stay home and take care of Tux, the scraggly 9th Crain kid. At this point, my wondrously wonderful brother, Matthias Kimballoni, volunteered to be proxy in Mom's place. Although he was coming in Mom's place, he informed me first thing that he had no intention of singing me any lullabies and that he absolutely would not stop for any food storage sales along the way.
So it was, that I packed up all my earthly belongings (except for the eight to twelve boxes I left back in my room) and Matthew flew to SLC on my dime. A few days later life found us driving in a silver automobile on I-80 East just outside Lincoln, Nebraska (which if you didn't know also happens to be the city where a certain son of theirs was conceived--hence the namesake city. By the way, I figured out this connection all by myself.). The Mattster was driving along, making great time, when while passing a blue Honda Accord (2001 or 2002 model) suddenly he exclaimed loudly,
"Oh my crumbness! I can not accelerate. The car will not go any faster despite my leaden foot pressing firmly down on the larger pedal."
"BLOODY TABERNAC!!!" I loudly yelled, since I take after dad when it comes to swearing in a more dignified and cultured manner than some of my sisters, who think damn and hell are okay to throw around, since they're in the bible and all. I say as long as there aren't any French British around, I definitely win the battle of swearing less offensively than my sisters, but of course that's neither her nor there, and I need to get back to the story.
So, not only would the car not go any faster, but the stupid piece of crapola car was slowing down much like my sister Lara's brain slows down after 8:00am each day. Luckily, Matteroni, in all his awesome Republican driving skillfulness, skillfully steered us into the right lane and onto the narrow shoulder where we just barely beat the turtle who had challenged us to a race 10 feet earlier.
M-boy got out to check under the old hood-io, while I nervously drank 3 gallons of H20 and hoped that it would be a quick fix. Much to my chagrin, there wasn't a doggone thing wrong with the belts or the oil (as far as he could tell) and it was not shaping up to be the easy fix that me and my bladder were yearning for. Ever the optimists, though, we repeatedly tried restarting the car...over and over and over again. After the amused turtle handed us a memo that simply read, "Yo! I think yo' car is dead as that raccoon over there," we finally decided it was time for Step 2....call Dad!
After a lively discussion about whether we should abandon the car and hitchhike the rest of the way to DC or just ask the turtle to give us a lift to the next town, we finally relented and let Dad try to find a tow truck to tow us to the nearest repair shop.
Shortly after phoning Dad I realized that we had a problem. A BIG PROBLEM. I couldn't stop myself from dancing. Except I wasn't grooving out to Paula Abdul or Michael Jackson....I was doing the Adam dance. You know the one where you grab your crotch and shift your legs around in hoping that your erratic movements will help the pee to stay in a minute longer? At one point I was sure that I could feel pee starting to leak out of my eyeballs and knew it was only a matter of time before the poor drivers on I-80 were about to get a mid-day full moon they'd never forget (unlike the anti-climatic "super moon" we saw tonight). Just at that final moment, when I was ready to hose down the medians with a pee stream that would rival that of any fire hose, there it was. A chorus of angels singing....
♫"Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"♫
It was a port-a-potty sent straight from heaven!
After the Hallelujah chorus died down and I expelled approximately 4.2 gallons of liquid in complete privacy, I started to notice the port-a-potty shaking every time a big truck passed by. It was then a new panic set in. I could see the headlines in my head....
"Traumatized Girl Stuck for Hours Wallowing in Roadside Port-a-Potty When Passing Truck Tips it Over"
Thankfully, I was able to finish my business uneventfully and the tabloids got to stick to their coverage on the four-headed spawn of the Lochness Monster and the Abominable Snowman. After that adventure it got a little boring waiting around for our tow truck savior to arrive, so I resorted to one of my favorite past-times--self portrait taking. I was really working the lens and posing all pretty like, so decided I should name my portraits, you know in case the Post takes it for syndication. I hereby dub this self portrait "AnnaLisa Just Lost 7 Pounds of Water Weight and is Worried that Her Pants Are Going to Fall Down, but if She Purses Her Lips Just Right People Will Just Think She Looks Like a Super Model!"
324 self portraits and three more trips to the port-a-potty later, tattooed tow truck driver Mike showed up to take us back to Lincoln (the city, not the nephew). Turns out old Mikey boy is LDS and in the end, invited us to come to his ward talent show with him and his family. I toyed with idea of going just to show off my self-portrait taking skills, but then I was worried that Matt might try to do his Glenn Beck impersonation and decided that it was best for us and the Lincoln 2nd Ward if we kept on driving eastward and onward after our car was fixed.
At the end of the day, I was so relieved that I had Matt with me to keep me calm and entertained through what could have been a traumatic ordeal, that I didn't even mind the hours I spent being bored to tears enlightened on the evils of democrat fiscal policy. Additionally, I am grateful to live in a day of cell phones, so the whole ordeal took 6 hours instead of the 16 it would have taken us to walk to the next exit.
I'm thinking, though, that the age of Hyundais may not be all that it was cracked up to be and the verdict is decidedly still out on whether letting my goofy older sister take over writing this blog post for me was such a good idea either.
