How to survive a long road trip

On Sunday I woke up early (I’ve solidified my nickname, “Morning Nazi”) in Boston ready for what I expected to be a fairly long journey home. My friend Sean and I departed for our chilly walk to his heated, cozy Honda Civic. But when we arrived at the Civic, there was no Civic. My mouth went dry as I grasped the cold metal sign in my shivering hand. “No Parking during Boston College football games.”

I think I yelled something dramatic and old fashioned like, “Blast!” as we scanned the inanimate demon for a tow company’s phone number. Alas, there was no phone number and I erupted into an intense session of pacing. Eventually after fruitlessly calling some Boston tow lots, we located our kidnapped four-wheeled friend. We weren’t just losing time, but 95-South time, which is basically normal time only doubled or tripled since it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. After paying for the tow, we retrieved the car. While discussing the lives of tow lot workers, whether they were angry before they got the job or that the job made them angry, we stopped to inflate our tires since the gentle tow truck and its disgruntled operator had caused some leakage. We were back on the road at 9:30 a.m.

We sailed through snowy Connecticut and Massachusetts, listening to Billy Joel and chatting gleefully, unaware of the horror that lay before us. The first harbinger of evil was a minor rubbernecking event in Connecticut. We cursed the drivers who slowed down to stare at a minor fender bender and sped off merrily, assuming that nothing was rotten in the state of New York.

As the skyscrapers usurped the foggy New England skies, red break lights multiplied before us and we knew we’d only entered the weeds. My joyous, off-key rendition of “She’s Got a Way” turned into silent seat-wiggling and low grumbling. I knew I had to take action because the road ahead was uncertain and Baltimore was hardly close. So I began sharing intimate details about myself and asking prying questions about Sean’s life. By the time we crossed the George Washington Bridge we had learned more about each other than we’d known in our 15-year relationship.

Each sitting a little bit closer to the outsides of the car because of our newly revealed and recently discovered knowledge, we took solace in a few moments of silence. But it didn’t take me long to come up with a new activity and that’s when I began reading out loud. I read Sean a few short stories by David Sedaris, an entertaining and riveting author, in my opinion but Sedaris is apparently a bit racy for a heterosexual male. Once again, we were back to squirming in our seats. That’s when we switched to The Beatles and then made a pit stop at a service plaza, obviously named for some dead American hero or inventor. I opted out of a $9 burger and chose to eat a Chewy bar in favor of caloric content and value.