Friday, January 28, 2011

F**k this…IM OUT! : LESSONS LEARNED AFTER ABANDONING YOUR CAR AND WALKING .8 MILES IN THE SNOW





So yes, Wednesday night, I was one of those people who didn’t make it home. This was a direct result of me making the 2nd dumbest descision of my life. For the record, the dumbest thing I ever did was run out of gas the first time I drove my first car because I didn’t realize that you couldn’t ride 2 days when the needle was showing in the orange. Me: “What the hell! You run out of gas when it goes ALLLLL the way to zero!” Dad: I put 5 dollars of gas in the car, drove it to va and home and then you drove to school and back in traffic. Its out of gas. Me: NO ITS NOT! YOU BOUGHT ME A BROKE CAR!

Yeh, I’m pretty smart, but I have some (a lot) of dumbass moments. And so we continue on with one of them…

Okay, so fed govt is closed 2 hours early. I dip out to my drs appt on rt 7 by seven corners. I’m moving to Bethesda on Monday so I wanted to get this painting and throw from ZGallerie in Tysons before the weekend because I don’t want them to sell out of it plus its on sale. **SIDE NOTE : If you want to help me move, that would be awesome. Im paying in booze and hugs**So I leave the drs office at about 448 pm and my gps tells me tysons is 7 miles away. At this point its sleeting and obese ass snowflakes are falling but the roads aren’t that bad and neither is traffic, just driving slow and kinda laffing as this mustang’s ass keeps swinging out to the side in front of me. I’m just thinking “what a dumbass this guy is, he cant even drive in the snow. I wish he’d get his act together or at least let me speed past him so I can drive at an unsafe speed towards MY destination. SHEESH some people are so inconsiderate”

Fast forward to nearly 4 hours later. I clicked on the thingy in my car that tells u trip time and average speed n stuff. My average speed was 3 mph. Trip time was 3 hours 52 minutes. Distance traveled: 3 muther effing miles. I was cool up to that point. I was listening to the junglebunny music on the radio, had some juice & water in the car and was chillen. I was employing the old “smile and breathe” yogic approach to bad things happening. I was safe, didn’t have to pee and wasn’t cold. I was only like 2.5 miles away from the mall so SURELY I was just gonna get my stuff. Chill till like 9pm when the mall closed. Traffic would be done by that time so going home would be fine. Juuust fine.

And then the proverbial shyte hit the fan.

38 minutes later, I had not moved from the overpass under I-66. Well, at least snow isn’t falling on my car anymore- I thought. It was also 8pm. I figured that I wasn’t going to make it to the mall. Darn, well let me just go home, no point in getting mad, just go home, eat a pizza, drink a beer and go to sleep. HA yeh right. I get on A COMPLETELY UNPLOWED I-66 aka the ROAD TO HELL. Snow fuggin everywhere. About 5 inches of it. I see the exit for 495 back towards my house. Two cars are in front of me. as I turn on my signal, one car slides and jackknifes across the exit, the other car slides perpendicular into it. Jesus took my car and allowed me to go back into my lane without sliding. I say Jesus cuz forreal, I dunno how I made that quick move without going halfway across the freeway. That shoulda been game over right there, but thankfully, it wasn’t. I had 2 more hours to drive (and lose my mind)
So the GPS tells me to go on Nutley street and turn around on 66. So I get to Nutley, see the ridonkulous amount of traffic on 495, ANOTHER COMPLETELY UNPLOWED exit

OH WAIT, I forgot I got stuck in some neighborhood and this guy who had sand bailed me out. Thought that was game over too. But it wasn’t!
Okai yeh so at this point (while driving still, prolly dumbass life decision #4 or #5) I was like, I’m not tryin to crash my car and I’m definitely not trying to die. Death is not really whats hot in the streets. So I decide to find a hotel in the area and stay for the night. I find an econo lodge on the gps but it keeps telling me to keep turning around thru the unplowed intersection where I can see several cars getting stuck. So X’ed out that option. I found out this morning that my co worker lives on Nutley street right where I was. FML. Then I decided well’ I cant turn around gotta find a hotel in this direction, preferably name brand because I don’t want bedbugs. Yucky.

So where does Glenda the GPS take me? EFFING TYSONS. It says 2 miles so I’m thinking this shouldn’t take long. I’m on chain bridge road and traffic is moving, then just stops. This is where I lose it. The tears come, I’m blaming everyone on earth for the traffic, pretty much having a breakdown in my car, complete with “I WANNA GO HOMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” screams, as if anyone can help me. I’m literally looking at the drivers next to me, blowing snot bubbles n shyte. No pride left. So then I get to within what my gps tells me is .8 miles of the marriott residence inn. And I stay within .8 miles for 45 minutes. Its 11 pm. I have to pee. A lot. Im HONGRY. IM MAD. IVE BEEN DRIVING OVER SIX FREAKING HOURS AND HAVENT GONE 7 GOTDAYUM MILES. I lost it. I parked my car on the first semi-plowed residential street I see. And I bounced. Prolly did the most pissed off walk of my life. Then I started running. And then I fell into A HOLE ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD 3 FEET DEEP. I shit you not. Not a drain, A BIG ASS HOLE. Now my leg hurts. I start running again, this time in the street cuz that’s safer than fugging possibly disappearing into oblivion again on the side of the raod. Oh btw, theres no cars in the road. We weren’t moving cuz a car was stuck and dude in the other lane gets out to help, blocking both lanes. Its good to help ur neighbor in need, just do it efficiently #cmonson

Cars are abandoned/stuck, ppl are walking by, I have on the meanest mug in the history of earth. But I can see mcdonalds so im good. Then I see 43 mexicans with paint on their pants going in the mcdonalds. I Debo them like fuck this, you aren’t here legally, no way you’re getting served before me! I PAY TAXES DAMMIT. Only to see 87453 more people in the mcdonalds. Fuckballs. So I go to taco bell. No one there, due to their food not being real meat apparently. So I get a chicken quesadilla.
Walk to the residence inn. No rooms available. Dude says every hotel in tysons is sold out. “no its not.” I say and bounce. I see a Hilton garden inn behind the hotel in the distance. Cant see the roads to get to it, so I walk thru parking lots and roll down humonguous embankment hills to get to it. Its big so they must have rooms! OH AND THERES A LINE! They must have rooms! Once again, I Debo the line and ask, please tell me yall have rooms….

No, we’re completely sold out.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! And at this point breakdown # 2 occurs. I sit in the lobby and cry like a biznatch. Facing the door so hopefully they see me, think im like 16 and give me a room. No such luck. I go outside, and call my mom who was blowing up my phone earlier. I called her back about 3 hours prior and said I was in a courtyard Marriott for the night and my car was in the parking garage. This time the convo went a lil different:

“Yeh, so I lied. I don’t know where my car is right now. There are no hotel rooms AND IM IN TYSONS….AND IM COLD AND I GOTTA PEE-HE-HE-HE *crying stutter* AND IM SO HUNGRY-HE-HE-HE..UUUUUUUUUUUGHHHH EEEEEEEEEE *temper tantrum wail of frustration* WHAT AM I GONNA DO MOMMEEEEEEEEEE *SNOT BUBBLE POP*”
So I go back in the lobby and make the next logical descision. Not to eat my taco bell since I haven’t eaten since 1 pm: I HEAD TO THE BAR. DUH.
A black girl tells me, they just closed the bar. FML.

So long story short, I Deboed this man for a couch (I did a lot of debo-ing that night) in the lobby. They opened the bar up, and I had some Jameson, and convos with an Iraq vet, slept on the couch, woke up, hungover, had the hotel buffet breakfast…and then the power went out. After my requestes to reopen the bar at 715 am went unanswered, I called out to work (other ppl didn’t make it home as well) and went back to sleep. My new friend, Namoshe, the black girl at the bar had kept me moderately sane throughout the ordeal. We also bonded thru our temporary homelessness and since her car was in the hotel,, she drove me back to my car.

And then I went to Tysons and went shopping. Don’t judge me.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

meg,matt hi! Your hilarious! ok bye