Murphy's Law

About a month ago I went with an acquaintance/friend to St. Louis. It was a Friday and he appeared in the office just before I left and asked if I wanted to go with him to a thing. Seems the St. Louis Christian College (I think that's the name) brought in Ryan Dobson to speak at a pseudo-college days event. I spend a lot of time by myself, so I quickly accepted this invitation and we left. Ryan Dobson, son of famed Pastor/author James Dobson, was pretty interesting to listen to. He's originally from California and it shows. Thick, black plastic fashion glasses (not the Rivers Cuomo type, the "I assume he's secure enough with his image to wear those strangely proportioned glasses" type) were in the middle of his face and giant black plugs stretched his earlobes into little fleshy hula hoops all while wearing a tight button down shirt with some stylish print of a woman's face (no doubt made by Diesel or some other company that looks at the likes of Express clothing with contempt [this is a really long sentence] ). I've known several Californians in college. They all have more or less the same air and attitude, especially when exposed to the Midwest. Which is fine, I actually liked the guy.

But this story isn't about Ryan Dobson.

We were originally going to crash that night at the school with my friend's (we'll call him Matt [mostly because that's his name] )friend. We ended up just leaving that night. The thing was over at 10:30 or so and neither of us had eaten dinner, so we decided to stop and get something to eat somewhere we don't have at home. I suggested Chevy's (my favorite Mexican restaurant [really thin chips and chipotle style salsa {drool} ] ), so we head out trying to get there. I think I made a mistake by suggesting something we weren't immediately near.

It was the little pebble kicked down the hill that starts the avalanche in all the cartoons.

We start in the north side of St. Louis and somehow we end up on the south side heading west. Living in Illinois (and so is Chevy's), this is obviously a problem. I tell Matt to take the next exit, whatever it is, and we'll use it to turn around and undo whatever wrong turns we took.

But of course it is one of those interstate off-ramps that you can get off the highway but you can't get immediately back on. You have to play the "Where the crap is the on-ramp???" game. Being a good two hours away from home still, I tell Matt to find a place we can ask how to get back on the highway. At this point it is well after 11:30 and wherever we are (we literally have no clue where we are) Taco Bell is the only thing still open. So we pull through the drive-thru and ask for directions. The guys working there (bright shining beacons of society that they are) are confused that we didn't order food but still give most of an answer. As we're pulling away, we hear a sharp hiss like air being let out of a really big balloon. Matt looks out the window to see if we ran over some kind of air hose (what???) and doesn't see anything. So we pull away, and sure enough (you've probably seen this coming) there's a metallic ding ding ding and a thwop thwop thwop (this is fun) as we roll. Matt gets out but doesn't see anything. Hoping for the best, we get back onto the side road and Matt gives his little truck some gas. You don't have to be very smart to guess what sound we were still hearing.

I tell Matt to pull over again. We pull over in a little closed K-Mart parking lot. I get out and check the tire myself. In the middle of the tire was embedded a nail with a head the size of a nickel. Great. I think to myself, how could this get any worse?

If I only knew.

A year or so ago I realized that I didn't know how to change a tire, so I asked my dad if he could show me. I thought it would be a good bonding experience since he's a car guy. His response to the question? "You don't need to know how to do that nowadays." Thanks, Dad.

Something worth mentioning is the fact that neither Matt nor I are very "handy." He had never changed a tire before. I did change a tire, but only with a lot of help from my roommate. I get the truck up on the jack somehow and with great effort we get the lug nuts off the tire (apparently you're supposed to take them off while the car's on the ground . . . that would have been much easier.) and Matt gets the spare out of the truck. As I'm about to slide the spare onto the axle, I can't help but think "With the way that everything's been going, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't fit."

I really wished I hadn't said that.

Sure enough, it didn't fit. I tried it three times, once even backwards just in case. Nope. I can't imagine a scenario where you would end up having the wrong size spare. But somehow Matt did just that.

As simple as that we were stranded.

He calls his dad to come pick us up and we go back to Taco Bell to get something to eat because it is nearly midnight and we have yet to eat dinner. Taco Bell has a policy of not serving you if you walk up to the drive-thru window. Unfortunately, we didn't really have any choice because the lobby was closed. Matt walks up and motions to the guy to open the window. After a few "I'm not supposed to" looks, the guy opens the window. Matt explains our situation to the guy and asks if we could get something to eat. We don't think that this is too much of a stretch. After all, we picked up the giant nail in their parking lot. After a bit of coaxing they let us come in and wash the road grime off our hands and get a burrito. The funny thing is they make us stay by the door because they're afraid this is all a ruse to rob them. Sorry, Bucko, this is for real.

Matt gets a call from his dad telling him that he's not coming and Matt should just get a tow truck. Matt calls information and gets one. He has to hand the phone to one of the employees to tell them where we are because, remember, we have no clue where we are stranded. We kept asking the guy where we were and the best answer he could give us was "St. Louis County." Thanks, buddy. That really narrows it down.

We take the burritos (not Chevy's, but at this point I'd eat anything) and go back to the parking lot where the truck is. One of my favorite things about the night is us sitting by the truck up on a jack and one of those giant street sweeper cars pulls into the other side of the parking lot. After a few minutes it passes by us and I catch eyes with the big Hispanic man that's driving it. I could tell that he could care less about our predicament, especially when he drives right past us without slowing.

The tow truck comes finally and we tell him our situation. Basically, there's nothing he can do. The only thing he can do is tow us to a nearby tire place that will be open in the morning. We do just that, and the guy feels bad for us and doesn't charge us anything. Matt gets the idea to call his buddy at the school to come and get us and we'll just stay the night there like we had originally planned.

His friend calls back and says that he doesn't have access to a car.

At this point we're up against a wall. What are we going to do? Where are we? Is it even 50 degrees out here? I think about calling my friend who lives near the college. I saw her for two or three minutes that night, but other than that I haven't really seen her in two or three years. As I'm about to call (mind you, it's a good 1 or 2 AM at this point) Matt decides to get a cab to the school. We pass the phone off to the tow truck guy and he again tells them where we are. As we wave farewell to the nice tow truck guy, we are told that the taxi will arrive in ten to twenty minutes. so we sit in the cold outside some strange tire place and watch the occasional car drive by.

Forty-five minutes later I just start laughing.

This is ridiculous. I'm afraid to ask "What else could possibly happen?" because I know I will find out. A police car passes and I try to flag him down as he drives by. At this point I'll take anything. I don't really know how much more time passes, but finally a car with "Such-and-Such Taxi company" on the door flies right past us. Of course. I wouldn't expect him to actually stop. He actually does come by after a few more minutes and Matt and I pile in.

Matt and I have been talking and we decide that we should just take the taxi to some motel and stay there. It would cost the same to take the half-hour taxi ride back to the school as it would to rent a room. The lady at the front desk at the nearest inn tells me that there's some kind of convention in town and all of the rooms are booked. I should, though, try Holiday Inn. She tells me where it is, and I relate it back to our taxi driver who doesn't have a clue where it is. I go back in and ask her the directions again. "Your driver doesn't know where Holiday Inn is?"

At this point, the only response I can muster is "I dunno, he's just . . . "

I couldn't come up with any more words. I was completely tapped out. The lady at the front desk interprets this as "I dunno, I think he's been drinking." So she has pity on us and rents us a handicapped room that they rarely let out. I tell Matt that we do indeed have a room and he pays the driver. I look at myself in the mirror for a moment, trying not to relive the evening. Tiredly, I slip off my belt and shoes and fall onto the bed, drained.

The next morning I was supposed to be in the office at 7 AM. The "I'm stranded somewhere south of St. Louis and I won't be able to make it in until later" phone call was a fun one. Another taxi takes us back to the tire place. It's open now and we wait another half hour while they check out the tire and replace it. Matt pays for it and we ask how to get back on the highway.

We finally do find the highway. Twenty hours into this trip, I slouch down in my seat and sigh as I realize the final piece of the puzzle:

After all of this, we're still two hours away from home.