TinyPenguininja

A Crazy Night

Had the most ridiculous night last night. We decided to go pick up a friend , but we needed gas. 

At the gas station, I got out and some shirtless old guy came up to me, shook my hand, and asked “Hey man, you wanna smoke weed with me you got any weed?” I told him I didn’t have any and tried to go into the gas station to pay.

“Hey man, can you spare any money?”

He stepped in front of me and started shaking my hand again and I told him no. He asked a few more times before I had to be a little more firm and he walked away. When I came back out, he was leaning in the window of the car, asking Michael for something. I started filling up the car and he said, a few times in a row, “He let me borrow his phone, gotta call a taxi” (If he needed my money, how was he gonna pay a taxi?)

I finished pumping the gas and sat down in the passenger seat. He started walking away with the phone, and refused to either give it back to me or stay placed. Not wanting to make a scene, we agreed to follow him up the road a bit. We followed him for about half a black, when he suddenly veers into the dark-ass park near the Commons (not the best part of an already sketchy neighborhood). I got out of the car, thinking I’m about to get mugged or something, and catch up to him.

“Let me tell you somethin’, man” he says and starts shaking my hand again. “I need some money. Can I have some?”
“No, I spent it all on gas.”
“Let me tell you somethin’” he says, still shaking my hand.
(awkward, hand-shaking pause)
“Just a couple of dollars?”
“No, give me the phone back please”
He pulls the phone out and starts venturing deeper into the creepy park.
“I need to call still” he says
“Give me the phone”
“Still gotta call a taxi” (still wandering farther away from the car and into the dark creepy ghetto park)
“If you don’t give me that phone I’ll just call the cops”
“Oh, I was just headed back to give him his phone” he turned without missing a beat and started walking toward the car again. (Good thing that worked, we only had the one phone)
He gave the phone back to Michael, and when I got back in the car he was leaning in the window asking, again, for money. “Let me tell you somethin’ man…”
”We don’t have any money!”
“Oh, can I have that then?” and pointed at a week-old, mostly empty bottle of Lipton sweet tea that had been sitting in the car out in the heat and crap. He took the bottle and left. As we pulled away, we heard someone in another car screaming at someone as she came up the road. We turned and went through a light and she came flying up behind us and tried to swerve past us. Shooting past us, still hollerin’ away at her phone, she didn’t see the curb from a little platform in the intersection, and hit it. Swerving so sharply, twice, that I thought they were going to flip (seriously, it looked like super stylized driving you’d see in like… the Fast and the Furious or something) and coming to a halt.

We stopped and asked them if they needed help. We didn’t realise how much we’d come to kinda regret it a little. The two girls got out of the car wondering what hat happened. We said we’d help them change their tire and the hunt began for supplies. 

First major obstacle was the jack. As we pulled metal bits and bobs from various hidey holes around the vehicle, we found no trace of it. The booklet in the glove compartment referred us to a few different sections before showing us a picture of its general location, but no clue as to how we should get it out. As we took turns pulling at any metal pieces that felt like they might let us find the elusive tool. After a little bit, we found it and removed it from it’s hiding place.

This was the point at which the passenger said “Oh my god, I have to pee” and proceeded to go on the other side of the front door of the car (I could still see her pretty well) and squat down and piss on the road.

Second, the new tire. (Spoiler: we never managed to remove it) It was under the car, hanging by some weird bolt that had to be unscrewed using a three-piece assembled rod, which was then inserted into a long angled hole in the back of the truck above the bumper and turned counter clockwise. Then we were supposed to dismount the tire by tilting the bolt that held it or something. Unfortunately, the tire got stuck halfway through unscrewing it. According to the manual, this meant some kind of secondary bypass or some kind of lobotomy or something needed performed. In order to do it, however, we’d had to lower the car, which had the tired off it, and then raise it again in a different spot. At this point. it began to rain pretty heavily. The one who’d been driving asked if I could put her tire back on and lower the car so she could get in.

Already getting pretty wet through my shirt and jeans, I bolted the tire back on. As soon as I had it back on all the way, the rain stopped. The driver borrowed Michael’s phone (that thing gets around) to try and call a bunch of people to find someone with AAA as we just stood around. Eventually, she found someone and asked if we could drive her somewhere to stay while they waited for AAA. As we got to this strange house in a different part of town, she then informed us she needed to go back to the SUV because apparently AAA was already almost there. We left the passenger at the house and then dropped the driver off at the SUV again.

And then we went home and I posted this on tumblr. And I doubt anyone will read it.