Murphy and Me

[ShawnLee]

I'm too tired to post right now, but I just got back from Oklahoma. This would belong in the suckage forum, but it got so bad that I'm now extremely amused by it, and so I thought it belonged here.

Ever have a trip where everything that could go wrong does? Yeah, I just wanted to put this up to get a chance for GAM to move this if so inclined, but this is an enjoyable sharing of a memrable life experience that I'll probably be able to fully post and explain tomorrow.

For now, I'll just enjoy the fact that I'm home.

[ialsohaveadream]

Welcome back!

[Jenny]

Oh come on! My sister wasn't that bad looking!

(J/k really Glad you are back safely. )

[eSDee]

You went to Oklahoma and you trip sucked? How did that happen?

[ShawnLee]

So I was trying to write out one long post about what happened, but that just isn't happening. So I'll just write little tidbits at a time...

So my friend Eugene is a 2LT at Ft. Sill, OK where he is going through initial branch training for Field Artillery officers. He has an obsession with the 1985 Toyota Corolla GTS. This car is apparently the vehicle of choice for people who love cheap rear-wheel drive cars that are balanced well so that they can semi-spin them out of control in a "sport" they call mountain drifting. Well, he started getting paid by the Army this year and so he was able to get the car worked on. He got the engine redone, replaced all sorts of fun stuff like the header, camshafts, etc. etc. etc.

I had done most of the incidental stuff to deal with the car, such as dealing with the shop that was rebuilding it, getting the wheels aligned, fixing the steering assembly, putting a tint on it, etc. My brother had replaced the interior paneling so we knew exactly what this car had gone through to be fixed.

Before he was able to get the car fixed, he got his orders to report to Oklahoma. So I, being the good natured friend that I am, decided to drive it out to him. The only thing he had to do was pay for my flight back, and all the incidental costs of the trip. Besides, I'd never been to Oklahoma and I'd liked going through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, so I thought it'd be fun.

Now I realize that it'd be retarded to go 1,200 miles by myself, so my other friend decided to go along. Her name is Inee, and she's only a friend. We're not friends with benefits, and we're not dating. We are JUST FRIENDS...

So we leave from Diamond Bar at 9PM, where she lives, and she forgets her wallet and we turn around. A tiny thing, but an omen of things to come. I call it our sign. Anyhow, we started our trip with a prayer, asking for a fun time and that our friendship would develop well and that we wouldn't fight or anything like that. Those aspects were certainly answered.

So I drove for about seven hours and about 3:30AM we switched so I could sleep. Mind you, this was her first time really driving a manual transmission and as she was going up hills, the car would effectively slow down and weaken, which was annoying considering that Eugene had paid a ton of money to get this car fixed. But we thought that it was simply the result of the fact that the car was older than some of the soldiers that Eugene would be leading soon.

Add to this that when we once put gas in the car, the engine wouldn't start at all. I had to have Inee push the car as I tried to start the car in second gear.

Anyhow, I went to sleep and Inee drove for about an hour and a half. I was having a dream which I've since forgotten, but do remember being very content. Suddenly in my dream I remember that I'm getting thrown, and as I wake up, the car starts lurching forward as it kicks in rhythm with loud engine noises. I honestly had no clue where I was and Inee says, "Shawn? The car's dying." I told her to pull over when she told me that she already had. She surprised me because my head was still spinning.

So I got out of the car still barefoot and did the normal man thing where I looked at the engine even though I knew nothing of what anything would do. So we switched spots and I tried turning on the car, which worked, for a second. It died again and I decided to check under the hood again.

By this point, I've woken up and my brain is actually processing the signals my senses are sending. The one sense that was important was the tingling that told me that my foot was numb. It was friggin' cold! I forgot how badly cold the desert got, which is understandable since I'd first learned about the desert's lack of climate control (something having to do with the lack of water and its specific heat properties).

So we called AAA and had no way to tell them where we were, so I walked back a few hundred yards (with shoes on this time) to see the last exit sign, I-40 Exit 320, Pinto Rd. In other words, BFE, Arizona. They said it might take up to an hour for the truck to get there. Might? An Hour? Both were lies. Might was an understatement. As I would find out later, an hour was right, without factoring the fifteen minutes it took for our man Arnold to warm up his truck. Thanks go to Arnold's Towing in Sanders who helped us out of a bad situation.

Basically, while waiting for him, we took pictures of the beautiful desert sunrise and tried to catch up on sleep, and whatnot. But since the car is old, it's horrible to breathe in. So we had to make a choice. Freeze and breathe? Leave warm corpses? So we cracked open the windows and proceeded to shiver uncontrollably. We put on our sunglasses, not because we tried to be cool Californians, but because that sunrise which had been beautiful quickly turned blindingly bright...

I think I'll leave it there for now and describe the next part in another installment. Mind y'all that this is the beginning, and I think that at least three more of these will be needed to complete my trip. G'night!

[Jenny]

LOL Fun!

[ialsohaveadream]

So I got out of the car still barefoot and did the normal man thing where I looked at the engine even though I knew nothing of what anything would do. So we switched spots and I tried turning on the car, which worked, for a second. It died again and I decided to check under the hood again.

I feel for you. I hate having to do that, because unless it is something painfully obvious (like, say, th engine bursting into flames), I have no idea what's wrong.