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Back to the forum While we are at it!
Dean Clement Sharron Sarthou English 101 sec 10 Sept. 6, 2000 Smells Like Teen Spirit An Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight can seat four grown men comfortably, five can be in there if they are not going to be in the car long. Six. Six of us crowded into my roommate’s luxury sedan, in the late summer of 2000, and drove the three hours from Jackson, MS to Birmingham, AL. The trip was planned months in advance, but the best laid plans of mice and teenage guys often go awry. The vehicles originally planned to go were out of commission the week before we left. What were six “Man or Astro-man?” fans to do this close to seeing the greatest surf-rock band in the world? Anything it took. Even if it meant riding like sardines all the way across the great state of Mississippi. The plan was to meet at my house Friday morning, and then get in the one car that could make the trip. Martin, Taylor, and Bill did not have cars, Charlie’s car was in the shop, and the “Shaggin Wagon”(my 1984 Jeep Cherokee) could barely make it to my high school and back without having to be towed. My buddy Charlie made the crucial call of “SHOTGUN” while in my driveway, and Taylor and I got in the backseat with Lewis getting in the cockpit. We still needed to pick up Martin and Bill. They both live close to me so we were at Martin’s house within minutes. “What’s up guys?”, Martin’s usual greeting. “Nothin Dave,” Lewis said. My roommate insists on calling everyone “Dave”, or “Steve Dave”, or some combination of the two. Which is as confusing as it sounds. “Put your stuff in the trunk and let’s get Steve.” “WINDOW!”, Taylor and I claimed. You would think that the window would be the best place to be on a trip like this. Not True. The inside of a door is much more uncomfortable to be pressed against than one of your best friends. So the two guys in the middle had the best place in the backseat. As soon as Martin got into the car, we realized the severity of our situation. We were already so close together and we had not even picked the heaviest of our party. “Dude, let’s just not even get him.”, was Taylor’s solution, “ I mean let’s just drive past his house and if he’s out front we’ll get him, and if he’s not then it’s his loss.” “That’s a good plan. Maybe if he sees us in here like this he’ll decide not to come along,” Charlie offered thoughtfully . None of these plans were needed though because Bill seemed a little too happy to see the car already full of his friends. A grin on his, face he climbed in. This is where the story gets crazy. Packed in the car, we begin our journey. It was a three hour trip and we were a total of five minutes into it when we realized that it was going to be smellier than a nursing home trip to the zoo. Whenever you get six guys together, there is going to be a gas problem.(not the unleaded kind but the natural kind) Every two miles or so we had to avoid the urge to pull over and evacuate, but had to settle for rolling the windows down. “Shit, dude. Check your pants.”, was Charlie’s caring way of telling you to knock it off. There was a constant battling of claiming and refuting the flatulence that emitted from the car. “You know where that came from!” “That wasn’t me. Mine don’t smell like that!” “That couldn’t come from me! Charlie smelled it first, and he’s in the front seat. The air conditioner’s on so it would blow it back from there, and reach you at a lower velocity.” It would be easier to figure out how JFK was shot than to find out the origin of some of the smells in that car. Aside from the obvious odor problems, there was also a constant fear of highway patrolmen who are known for their unwavering position on safe driving. This would include having everyone in the car to wear a seatbelt. Since this was an impossibility, Lewis was frightened of getting pulled over. To solve this problem we decided to have look-outs for patrolmen. If one was spotted an obscenity was usually called out, and two of us in the backseat would duck down until the threat was neutralized. This system worked all right but it had its flaws... There was another problem with four of us in the backseat. Lewis could not see out of the rear windshield to save his life (or ours for that matter). This was not a problem while on the interstate, but once we got into urban Birmingham, Lewis let us all know that he was having some trouble seeing out of his rear view mirror. “SHIT! GET YOUR ####ING HEADS IN YOUR LAPS AND KEEP EM THERE!”, Lewis screamed at us every time he needed to change lanes. This was eventually reduced to “DOWN! NOW!” Which worked better because of its succinctness. Lewis would shout, we would go down, and he would change lanes. If one of us could not stand being bent over and tried to sit up, he would be hit with a barrage of obscenities or a slap on the head. After an hour of driving around downtown Birmingham looking for the hotel, Lewis had another problem. “ Uggghhh, you guys are makin my bowls hurt!” “What the hell are you talkin about Lou Lou?,” was our confused response. “You’re makin me so nervous. I think I’m gettin an ulcer. DAMMIT! I don’t need this.” he clamored. We finally made it to the motel with no casualties and minimal injuries. We got to see “Man or Astro-man?”, but that is a whole different story. We made the return journey the next day, but this time it was not so bad. Maybe we were used to the claustrophobia, the smells, being vilified by our driver, and the fear of Mississippi’s finest highway patrol...
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