Happiness, it is once again the weekend. And alas, this weekend is setting up to be spectacular! Let's see...the band plays tonight and tomorrow night, Civil War is tomorrow and...AND...I get to see Nubs!!! How fantastic is this news? Pretty much it's GREAT since I only get to see him once in a blue moon now that he's up and moved his booty away.
In honor of our friendship and laughs, I shall continue the best story either of us will ever tell you. Now where was I?
Oh yes...
So we were traveling. We made it safely to his coastal town without incident. After concluding said business, we fueled up, grabbed some lunch and some snacks for later and hit the road again, freshly armed with his CD collection. Funny little tid-bit: That man has more scratched CD's than a pawn shop. Still, it was better than nothing and we sang along to Korn and Tim McGraw with equal gusto. Yup, we're cool like that.
As we started across the mountain pass and headed south, we began to notice small amounts of snow on the side of the highway. I distinctly remember laughing and smiling about our good fortune of being inside a heated car and not out in the increasing cold. Oh how I would rue those words.
We made it to my hometown with little incident and ran my few errands, even stopping off to visit one of my other awesome friends...who's girlfriend asked if Nubs was my new boyfriend. Clearly in this day and age it's rare for men and woman in our peer group to simply be friends with absolutely no romantic entanglements.
Well yay for us being pioneers!
Back on the road, finally heading north as the darkness closed in around us. At this point, we're quickly approaching 12 hours of being in the car. Fun times, indeed. Oh, oh, oh...a slight side note. If you're ever traveling on Highway 97 in Oregon you will pass a large THING on the side of the road. It's unclear what this item is...I believe at one point in time it was a statue of either an elephant or rhinoceros or something. However, as we were heading south, we had passed it without much comment. On the return trip north, we passed again and Nubs says to me,
"What is that thing?"
Me: "I don't know. I think it was supposed to be an elephant or rhino at some point. Not really sure."
Nubs: "An elephino?"
(Now this is what I think he says. I should remind you that I am partially deaf and sometimes words slur together and my brain interprets some crazy things. This is not my fault.)
Me: "An elephino! That's it!"
Nubs: "HA HA HA! No, a 'hell if I know'!!"
Me: "Oh."
Nubs: "Elephino?! That's great! You are such a dork!"
We continued to laugh about this for a good 30 miles. It was great stuff. In fact, it continued to be funny as we started to make our way back over the mountain pass. It was hilarious until we heard a loud BANG! from the rear of the car. Yeah, you guessed it folks, flat tire.
Since we are both decently intelligent human beings, this should not have been such a big deal. But I did mention this was CPB's car, right? And so after we dug around the mounds of crap she had stuffed in her tiny little trunk to find the spare tire and other paraphernalia needed to change the tire, we were already a little more than annoyed. Also, I mentioned that we were in comfies and flip-flops, right? And there is SNOW on the side of the road. Fun times.
After laying some clothes out so he wasn't sprawled on the icy ground, Nubs commenced attempting to change the tire. Guess what folks?? The lug wrench doesn't fit. Yup. And we're stranded. His phone's battery is dying with every minute that passes and my piece of crap phone lost signal before the elephino incident.
So after fighting with the tire until his toes are blue, Nubs decides we should try to move the car a little ways up the road and look for help. We stop once in what appears to be a driveway. Nubs braves the ankle deep snow and hikes a ways up the slight incline looking for lights on. He returns without luck and we chug along in the decrepit car another mile or two until we see what looks like a campground/RV place. There are lights on but sadly there is no one home. Good news though, there is an electrical outlet so Nubs can charge his phone. He promptly plugs it in and calls CPB to relate the problem.
Now, to save some space, I shall paraphrase the next few hours. (That's right, I said HOURS.) Basically she says that not only did she know that her lug wrench didn't work for her car but that the tire that had popped had recently been patched and she knew it could probably pop at anytime. Also, that since this trip was for Nubs and I, one of us needed to call a tow company and figure out how to pay for it. We basically told her to shove it.
So, with minimal funds, minimal fuel and no way to fix the flat, we told CPB to figure out the problem and get back to us. We huddled under our meager sweatshirts and munched on our snacks. Five long hours later, B arrives with a mechanic friend to attempt to help us change the tire. After working on the tire for nearly an hour and almost giving up more than once, the tire miraculously comes loose and is quickly changed. We give hugs and heartfelt thanks to our rescuers and pile back into the car to trudge the few more hours home.
The rest of our trip was spent in alternate fits of rage at the stupidity of CPB. Also, B had mentioned that while they had been working on a solution to our problem, CPB had been more worried about what Nubs and I must have been doing while stuck in the car on the side of a mountain. Needless to say, I was a bit pissed.
We made it back to town in one piece...and nearly exactly 24 hours after we had departed. We were tired, hungry, irritated and pretty much miserable. And yet...that car trip is still one of my favorite memories.
Nubs very shortly there after recognized his error and promptly broke up with CPB. The boyfriend was grateful to have me back safe and sound. Nubs and I agreed that we should probably avoid being in a car together for a while. And over all we learned one very valuable lesson: two very sleep deprived, cold and miserable people combined with copious amounts of sugar equals hilarity. Because, through it all, we never stopped laughing.
Oh...and since you're probably wondering where Nubs got his fascinating name...it was also from our desperation. At one point, (somewhere around the wee, wee hours of the early morning...) Nubs laughingly suggested that we could walk back to town. Approximately a 130 mile trip...in our flip-flops. We joked that by the time we made it to town, our legs would be nothing but nubs and stubs. And in our sugar induced state, the nickname was hilarious and stuck. A year later and I still call him Nubs...and he calls me Elephino.
The moral of this story, kids?
There are many ways in life of discovering who your soul mates are. I found one of mine during a 24 hour road trip that involved cold feet and minimal sleep, Korn and Tim McGraw, Red Vines and Mountain Dew. And if I learned nothing else from that trip, I learned that Nubs and I will be friends until the end of days. I also learned that there was once a prehistoric animal that was a crossbreed between an elephant and a rhinoceros. It was an elephino and it was grotesquely beautiful.
The End!
Toodles my loves!
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